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THE GIFT OF 
MIND TO SPIRIT 

BY 
JOHN KULAMER 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1916 



MjJ-i3l 



I 



^ 



Copyright, 1916 
Sherman, French &" Company 

M 16 1916 



S>C1,A433374 

n^a ( . 



Flower in the crannied wall, 

I pluck you out of the crannies; 

I hold you here, root and all in my hand, 

Little flower — but if I could understand 

What you are, root and all, 

All in all, I should know 

What God and Man is. 

Tennyson. 



CONFIDENTIAL TO THE READER 



"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as 
a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, 
I put away childish things." 

I Corinthians 13: 11. 



This little volume contains my views upon the 
vital questions of life which, though I often tried, 
I could not down. They persisted in presenting 
themselves for solution. The small size of the 
book does not at all indicate the amount of reflec- 
tion and thought spent on it. These extended 
over a period of about sixteen years, although 
they did not assume a definite shape until about a 
year and a half ago. The idea of publishing them 
did not occur to me until about six months ago. 
Till then, whenever I reached a certain conclusion 
I would make a note of it, more with the view of 
its serving as a guide-post to me than of its pub- 
lication. Upon reviewing them I noticed how far 
I have traveled and, remembering the mental strug- 
gle through which I passed and how grateful I 
felt to the Rev. Charles E. Snyder, of Pittsburgh, 
Pennsylvania, for giving me a helping hand over 
the last obstruction in my path, I resolved upon 
publishing these memoranda in a book form, per- 
haps to perform a similar office for some one still 



CONFIDENTIAL TO THE READER 

in the shadow of doubt. In fact, I concluded that 
it was my duty to do so. This is my only excuse 
for obtruding myself upon the public. 

I have traveled the whole way: from the most 
hide-bound orthodoxy to a reverential, rational re- 
ligion. Personal experiences have a value to 
others only when they can be of help to them, to 
keep them company. And what a dreary expe- 
rience it is to be obliged to do battle with doubt 
single handed ! During such a struggle the placid 
security of unquestioning faith looks very attrac- 
tive indeed, and the temptation of returning to it 
is very strong. The knowledge that others have 
passed through similar experiences is a positive 
comfort. Biographical facts are unimportant, 
and in giving a short sketch of my experiences, I 
mention only such as are absolutely necessary to 
describe the mental struggle through which I 
passed. 

I was born and raised in the Roman Catholic 
faith. My father was ambitious to see me a 
priest, and fate pushed me along the road as far 
as the study of philosophy. Then I revolted. 
The limitations placed upon the mind by dogmas 
were beyond my endurance and I could not face 
a life of mental restrictions or the disgrace of a 
possible future rupture after the brand of the 
cloth had been placed upon me. Besides I felt 
that I could not lead the life I would have to pre- 
tend to be living. I faced the hard world unpre- 
pared and on that account passed through a se- 



CONFIDENTIAL TO THE READER 

vere ordeal. At times I was tempted to return, 
but my newly acquired freedom of mind and ac- 
tion was dearer to me than a life of leisure but of 
dissembling. For three or four years I still clung 
to the raft of the Roman faith, but my hold upon 
it was fast loosening and grew weaker and weaker 
every day. What I saw of the life of some priests, 
and a personal experience which at that time ap- 
peared to me as a real disaster, finally persuaded 
me to let go my hold altogether and to put my 
trust in the open sea of doubt and sink or swim 
alone rather than to depend upon a contrivance 
which seemed to be disintegrating. I argued to 
myself that a religion which could have so little 
influence upon the characters of its avowed ex- 
ponents and leaders could not be of much value 
to such as did not have the same knowledge of its 
tenets as they had. 

Then came a few years of almost complete irre- 
sponsibility. The moral restraints which derived 
their force from m}' discarded faith were wiped 
out, but there still remained enough self-control to 
keep me within the law and enough self-respect to 
buoy me up and keep me from sinking. I frankly 
admit that for religion I then had nothing but 
sneers and ridicule, and for those who practiced it, 
contempt. The impetuousness of youth blinded 
my vision and persuaded me into partial security. 
But even then, at times the vital questions of life 
obtruded themselves on me. I put them aside 
lightly. I suppose that nearly every one who 



CONFIDENTIAL TO THE READER 

thinks seriously at all passes through a similar 
experience. Some return to the fold, some drift 
away permanently. 

Advancing years and the hard blows of fate, 
however, soon brought me back to my senses, and 
then the real mental struggle began. Slowly I 
began to assemble the facts which I learned during 
my school days and tried to build around them 
a theory that would satisfy my mind. I never 
missed an opportunity to inform myself of the 
latest scientific discoveries and theories which had 
any bearing upon these questions and would throw 
some light upon them. At first I was a pure ma- 
terialist, but later there dawned upon me the ne- 
cessity of some controlling influence and I became 
a sort of scientific pantheist. But this very con- 
flict and the ever present doubts pointed con- 
clusively to the insufficiency of my convictions. I 
saw that life's necessities did not consist only of 
feeding and sheltering the body, that science of- 
fered no satisfactory explanation of the moral con- 
flict. Society is a voluntary association entered 
into by free and equal individuals, but all its needs 
and problems cannot be solved on the contract 
basis. Some differences arising between men can, 
and some cannot, be coldly arbitrated. Reason 
alone plays a very unimportant role in the forma- 
tion of character and in controlling human con- 
duct. Reason may prove conclusively to a desper- 
ate woman the folly of shooting the man upon 
whom she pinned her faith, and of herself taking 



CONFIDENTIAL TO THE READER 

poison, but it will not stop her from committing 
these follies. But since all this forms but one 
scheme, a satisfactory solution there must be of 
all its phases. 

Then there was in Pittsburgh a hectic spasm of 
religious emotionalism, and the activities of the 
Rev. Charles E. Snyder were brought to my at- 
tention. It was he who piloted me safely over the 
bar into the quiet harbor of certitude. For this 
I owe him undying gratitude. In the state of my 
mind at that time, I needed little to push me over, 
yet I could not muster enough strength to re- 
nounce my fast growing belief in barren ma- 
terialism, which, though evidently unsatisfactory, 
looked to me like the lesser of two evils. My new 
position became so clear to me that within a short 
time after I joined his church I could easily see 
the fallacies in a lecture delivered by an exponent 
of materialism. My vision had cleared, and it 
only remained to arrange my conclusions into a 
connected system. I do not claim to have found 
out the absolute truth, and some ideas are still in- 
definite, but I am satisfied that for the present I 
have found what is the truth to me. Knowledge 
is a variable quantity, ever growing, and it is im- 
possible to foretell what scientific discoveries may 
be made at any moment which will upset my pres- 
ent convictions, but I am positive of one thing, 
that I will never return to my former beliefs. 
Theories are always subject to reversal, but tradi- 
tions alone cannot do it with me. Truth is sub- 



CONFIDENTIAL TO THE READER 

jective: only so much liquid can be poured into a 
vessel as it will hold; an overcharge of electricity 
will burn the wire carrying it. To expect one 
man to accommodate his mind to the capacity of 
another's is folly. Facts are facts, but not every 
one can comprehend them in the same way. On 
the other hand, any attempt to force a man to be 
satisfied with less than what nature fitted him to 
receive, is a crime. 

Even when I studied scholastic philosophy, its 
dry method of definitions, propositions, syllogisms 
and classifications, though at all times intensely 
interesting, did not appeal to me as practical and 
attractive. In this volume I have adopted a nar- 
rative system which has at times necessitated the 
repetition of some statement of fact or a con- 
clusion ; but there is this advantage, that every ar- 
gument is complete in itself. The other method 
may be more condensed, but it is adapted only for 
the use of a student who can spend the time to 
commit to memory every step in the evolution of 
a thesis. It often happened to me that, when 
reading about some serious subject, the force of 
an argument was lost on me just because I failed 
to remember some previous statement of fact or a 
conclusion then appearing to be unimportant, and 
was either unable to find it or lacked the inclina- 
tion to look for it. Some statements are pur- 
posely reiterated because of their importance. 
The method used has also this advantage, that any 
one heading can be read intelligently even if the 



CONFIDENTIAL TO THE READER 

reader is not interested in the others ; or the book 
may be laid aside for an indefinite time should his 
interest lag or should inclination be lacking. 

As I said before, the volume contains my per- 
sonal views, during the formation of which I pur- 
posely refrained from reading books treating on 
the same subjects. I claim originality for them 
only to the extent that I arrived at my definite 
conclusions unassisted. Criticism, if any be 
vouchsafed, I shall receive gratefully, for I do not 
claim infallibility. I shall look for the greatest 
reward for my efforts in the assistance that this 
volume may lend to some one going through the 
same mental struggle through which I passed. I 
am now within the folds of a church whose posi- 
tion is to allow the mind a free rein to investigate 
the mysteries of nature and the vital questions of 
life without binding it down with dogmas or ar- 
ticles of faith, and whose main purpose is to har- 
monize man's everyday actions and experiences 
with the great truths as his mind perceives them. 
This I find perfectly satisfactory to me, and such 
a fold every man should try to find for himself. 
I claim that it is better to err honestly through 
one's own efforts than to permit oneself unresist- 
ingly to be led into and kept in error. No man 
has inherent authority to sit in judgment over 
his fellowman. And who can say that he has 
found the absolute truth.? 

John Kulamer. 
Pittsburgh, Pa. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I THE CONFLICT: MYSTICISM VS. 

REALISM 1 

I. THE TWO FACTIONS — The 

Great Puzzles and their Solution 
by the Spiritists 
II. THE CONFLICT — Persistence of 
Dogmatism; The Religious Posi- 
tion; The Scientific Position; Mate- 
rialism; The Materialist's So- 
ciety 

III. RECONCILIATION 

II CYCLES AND ANALOGIES .... 25 
I. THE THREE PRIMARY NO- 
TIONS — Classification of Natural 
Phenomena 
IL LIFE A FORM OF FORCE — 
Universal Life; The Properties of 
Universal Life; The Death of a 
Cell 
IIL DEVELOPMENT OF DIFFER- 
ENT KINDS OF LIFE — Animal 
Life; Cell Cooperation; The Or- 
igin of Life; Death of Complex 
Life 

IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MAN 
V. PROTOPLASMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

VL THE UNIVERSE 
VII. GOD 



CHAPTER PAGE 

III DREAMLAND AND THE SPIRIT 

WORLD 79 

I. BELIEF IN HEAVEN AND 
HELL AN OBSTACLE TO 
PROGRESS —« God " our "Fa- 
ther " ; Heaven and Hell ; Obstacle 
to Intellectual Progress; Drag on 
Moral Progress 
II. ORIGIN OF BELIEF IN THE 
SPIRITS 

III. INDIVIDUAL IMMORTALITY — 

Self-consciousness 

IV. GENERAL IMMORTALITY 
V. THE LIFE PRINCIPLE 

VL INDIVIDUALITY — The Matter 
and Form Theory; Scientific The- 
ory 
VII. ACTION OR INACTION 

IV EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS . . . .116 
L THE HUMAN BODY A PER- 
FECT DEMOCRACY — Moral 
Responsibility; Natural Crimes and 
Virtues 
IL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY — 
The Moral Conflict 

III. RIGHTS OF PRIVATE PROP- 

ERTY— The Marriage Relation 

IV. CONSCIENCE 
V. JUSTICE 

VL THE " HEART "— Passions and 

Sentiments 
VII. THE TRUE MOTIVE 
VIIL MORAL GROWTH 



V OUR METRIC SYSTEM 156 

I. THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOC- 
RACY 
II. DOLLAR-IZED SUCCESS 

III. DOLLAR-IZED COMMERCE AND 

INDUSTRY 

IV. DOLLAR-IZED LABOR — The 

Practical Remedy; A Vicious Cir- 
cle; The Life Insurance Evil; Re- 
ciprocal Contracts 
V. DOLLAR-IZED PARENTHOOD 

AND HOME 
VI. DOLLAR-IZED HAPPINESS 

VI DEMOCRACY'S NEED 211 

I. THE THEORY OF OUR GOV- 
ERNMENT— Social Life; Neces- 
sity for Self-restraint; The Office 
of Religion; National Religion 



THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 



CHAPTER I 

THE CONFLICT: MYSTICISM VS. 
REALISM 

When, in the process of his evolution, man's 
consciousness, memory and intellect developed 
sufficiently to enable him to comprehend, to a 
certain extent, his own nature and the position 
which he occupied in the universe, he found him- 
self a great puzzle. The same is true of every 
individual : he goes through a similar experience 
when his mind arrives at a similar stage in its 
growth. He has to cope with the everyday prob- 
lems of life and to exert all his efforts in his strug- 
gle for existence. He feels that he ought to be 
happy and yet he meets with difficulties and dis- 
appointments, with persecutions and injustice; 
perhaps he suffers hunger and pains, endures sor- 
rows ; or his body is racked with illness until he is 
ready to exclaim with Hamlet : 

" Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, 
Thaw, and resolve itself into dew; 
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed 
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter. O God ! O God ! 
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable 
Seem to me all the uses of this world. 

1 



2 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

Fie on't ; oh, fie ! 'Tis an unweeded garden 

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature 

Possess it merely." 

He sees millions of other beings with the same 
capacity for happiness (for which they seem to 
have been created) in similar plight without any 
apparent reason for it, while there are others, the 
minority, who are supplied with everything and 
who to all appearances are fulfilling their destiny. 
He sees about him a beautiful world, full of mys- 
tery, of which he seems to be a part and 3'et 
separated from. He sees the unworthy prosper 
while the deserving are suffering want ; he sees 
men belonging to the same race oppressing each 
other. Injustice seems to triumph and honesty 
suffer defeat. He sees the mad scramble for 
wealth only to end in a grave, whither it cannot be 
taken and beyond which his gaze cannot penetrate. 
He sees new life coming into the world in travail, 
and he stands at the bedside of the dying, passing 
out in agony. He sees pomp and wealth, and 
degradation and poverty. He sees noble men and 
women, and abject wretches wallowing in the mire 
of viciousness. In his own soul there is a contin- 
ual struggle between a desire for ease and leisure 
at any price, and the prospect of hard but hon- 
est toil ; between an overpowering ambition to ride 
to self-exaltation over the bodies and souls of oth- 
ers, and the faithful performance of the tasks that 
each day brings in obscurity ; between doing what 



THE CONFLICT 3 

is right in expectation of a reward only, and fol- 
lowing ideals because they constitute the nat- 
ural revelations of the perfection of the Infinite. 
These problems present themselves to every one : 
What am I? Whence am I? Why am I? 
Whither am I tending? To some these questions 
present themselves clearly and are defined sharply ; 
to others, but vaguely and indefinitely. With 
some they are insistent for an answer; others put 
them aside carelessly, allowing the little affairs of 
life to drown their voices. Whether a man ap- 
plies himself seriously to their solution or passes 
them up unanswered depends upon many circum- 
stances, — the surroundings amid which he lives, 
his condition in life, his everyday needs and his 
natural capacity. And yet, notwithstanding all 
this, it is the duty of every one to solve these 
problems as best he can. Ordinarily, those feel- 
ing the pinch of want, the pangs of bodily pain 
or the hard facts of life, unless their minds have 
been completely dulled, give more attention to 
them than those differently situated. A satisfied 
animal is not given to speculation, and a full 
stomach is an enemy to serious thought. And the 
solution of these problems is important and not 
merely an idle speculation, because it is necessary 
for the proper regulation of man's daily conduct. 
Upon their answer depends not only the quieting 
of his mind, but also the proper harmonizing of 
his every act to the requirements of the world of 
which he is a part. Upon the proper understand- 



4 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

ing of his own position and nature depends his 
comprehension of his relations to others with 
whom he comes into daily contact. 

I. THE TWO FACTIONS 

There were always men who devoted themselves 
almost exclusively to the solution of these prob- 
lems, and at present there are two groups of se- 
rious thinkers, and a horde of charlatans, who are 
exerting themselves to arrive at some satisfactory 
conclusion. On the one side we have the religion- 
ists, believers or spiritists, — that is, all those who 
believe in the existence of a spiritual world ; and 
on the other side we have the scientists, rational- 
ists, materialists, who do not go beyond what can 
be deduced from knowledge acquired through the 
senses. The former take the everyday experiences 
of man and the problems of life, — his acts and 
their qualifications, his desires, aspirations, ideals 
and evil inclinations, — and give them a substance. 
They personify these and even extend them into 
the Infinite. These personifications they call 
spirits ; the supreme and infinite personification of 
all the good experiences is their God. Of old 
there were many gods ; now they are united into 
one. 

THE GREAT PUZZLES AND THEIR SOLUTION BY 
THE SPIRITISTS 

There are three great puzzling facts in man's 
life: his birth in pain, his bodily sufferings and 



THE CONFLICT 5 

his death. For these he has been trying to find 
reasons. His mind has been groping in darkness 
ever since he began to think. Even to-day, with 
our advanced knowledge of life, we cannot explain 
why birth should be the source of anguish to the 
mother, why it is fraught with danger, why some 
other method could not have been devised by the 
Omnipotent to usher a new life into this world. 
It is the highest function of a living being, the end 
for which it exists. We can only guess at the 
reason for the existence of pain and illness, — why 
man, the most efficient form of life, for the produc- 
tion of which untold ages of selection have been 
spent, should still be subject to attacks from very 
inferior forms of life. It would seem like a fail- 
ure. Why should an individual man die.^^ In the 
long past, man grasped at the simplest explana- 
tion he could find, drawn from his everyday ex- 
periences and the relations among which he then 
lived, which was that all these evils were the pun- 
ishment for some transgression. The transgres- 
sion, disobedience of an arbitrary command, was 
represented in a concrete form in the tales of all 
the nations of the past. The natural struggle for 
existence was represented as a conflict between 
the opposing spirits of good and evil, and even this 
conflict was an actual fight. A similar simple ex- 
planation sufficed for the coming into being of the 
universe itself: man's theories about these things 
never rise higher than his general knowledge. 



6 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

Man knew that he was able to fashion useful ar- 
ticles out of crude materials ; the world was such 
a handicraft of an all powerful Being, or spirit, 
who did not need any crude materials out of which 
to fashion this world ; he made it out of nothing. 
This omnipotent mechanic ultimately became the 
personification and the acme of all the good at- 
tributes of human acts, the component of all the 
older gods. Essentially there is no difference be- 
tween the evil gods of the pagans and the Chris- 
tian devils, of the demigods and the angels, whose 
very names stand but for some good or bad that 
is in man. The fall of Lucifer and the fall of 
Adam do but represent a step in man's evolution. 
The pagans wove their mythology around differ- 
ent persons. Christianity unites all the different 
problems in one personality. The pagans dis- 
tributed the work of the creation of the universe 
among their several gods ; each human passion, de- 
sire and virtue had its godly counterpart. The 
Christians say that God created the world and that 
he is a spirit with the attributes of infinite love, 
mercy, justice and all the other good human acts; 
he became the objective realization of these man's 
ideals. The spiritists rest their inquiry here with- 
out even attempting to define the term spirit. 
They assert the existence of these spirit substances 
upon the authority of persons who, by virtue of 
their greater capacities, have sounded the very 
depths of these human experiences, who saw clearer 
into their own natures, but who could not express 



THE CONFLICT 7 

in words their own comprehension of them, and for 
that reason resorted to symbols. The powerful 
instinct of self-preservation, the very essence of 
life, gave rise in their breasts, more strongly than 
in the breasts of others, to the hope of immortal- 
ity, of an individual life after this. They, more 
than others, felt that life is perpetual, and with 
their limited knowledge of it they gave this feel- 
ing a concrete representation. They knew man as 
one simple individual, and not as a composite of 
millions of ordinarily invisible individuals, and to 
that one being, the individual as they knew it, they 
attributed immortality. But there was the one in- 
controvertible fact staring them in the face, the 
destruction of that individual which they knew; 
hence they attributed immortality to the soul, or 
spirit, or the life-giving principle which animated 
the destructible body. The grave ended the ma- 
terial existence, but there remained an immaterial 
existence, which was but a representation of the 
persistence of universal life. Of its nature they 
knew nothing, so that it was left to the imagina- 
tion to form such a picture as man's knowledge of 
life, its purposes and values, could induce. 

Unable to explain all the misery, disappoint- 
ments, troubles, pain and sufferings of this life, 
and yet feeling that man was destined for happi- 
ness, they postponed the realization of all his de- 
sires and aspirations, the fulfillment of his ideals, 
to after life, when this one great desire of life 
immortal would be realized also. It is the instinct 



8 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

of self-preservation that lends courage to a living 
being to struggle against unfavorable outside con- 
ditions, and its concrete expression, the hope of a 
life after death, has the same influence on man. 
Upon these real experiences of life and upon their 
hoped for realization, upon the symbolism with 
which these experiences and hopes were clothed, 
these great dreamers built up a system of rules 
of human conduct, evoked the sought for con- 
solations, supplied motives to life otherwise appar- 
ently empty, in a way which satisfied their minds 
and the minds and hearts of their disciples. Be- 
cause of the use of symbols, some radical ration- 
alists are inclined to question the sincerity of 
these men, and even to call them deceivers. But 
they are wrong ; for the rules of our conduct, our 
social and moral laws, ought to be based upon our 
knowledge of our natures and the relations under 
which we live ; and it is immaterial whether this 
knowledge is presented in simple words or in sym- 
bols, so long as these approximate the truth. Im- 
perfect knowledge was, in a measure, supplied by 
these symbols, and upon them it was proper to 
build the moral and civil codes. As long as they 
believed in these symbols, why could they not apply 
them to the solution of their everyday problems.'' 
And after all, man's moral responsibility never 
rises above his knowledge of himself and of his re- 
lations to others. If this knowledge must be rep- 
resented in symbols, if sincere, no harm is done. 
There is little doubt that the absolute mo- 



THE CONFLICT 9 

narchial system of government developed out of 
the ancient patriarchal form, under which first the 
father ruled absolutely, and natural filial obedi- 
ence was the bond, and later, the tribal chief by 
brute force, and blood relationship was the bond 
of union. This form was extended to the rule of 
the world and the Supreme Mechanic became also 
the Supreme Lawgiver. This, too, was but an ap- 
plication of human attributes to God. He became 
the heavenly king and the arbiter of human acts : 
the father and the judge. As such He was in- 
finite love, mercy and justice. 

II. THE CONFLICT 

Dogmatism is the main fault of symbolism. It 
asserts its theories to be absolute truths and there- 
by suppresses the activities of the human mind 
and prevents investigation. In this lies both its 
strength and its weakness. It could dominate the 
human mind only for a time, until willingly or un- 
willingly it discovered the many discrepancies 
which existed between dogmatic assertions and the 
gradually acquired irrefutable facts about nature 
and its laws. The anathemas and excommunica- 
tions of dogmatism lost their terrors in the ever 
growing light of scientific discoveries. Dogmas 
sufficed the untutored mind, but the force of scien- 
tific discoveries finally broke through the fetters 
which bound it for many centuries. The knowl- 
edge which mankind acquired by means of the tele- 
scope, microscope and spectroscope gave it a bet- 



10 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

ter insight into the laws which govern material 
things and into the nature of living beings. And 
herein were found the greatest inconsistencies in 
the spiritists' theories. The personifications of 
the qualities of human acts, of the immaterial or 
mental experiences, did not involve the spiritists 
in many inconsistencies, even after modern science 
has made its discoveries ; but the making of the life 
principle, or the soul of man, a spirit also opened 
up a breach through which scientifically inspired 
doubt entered and is now threatening the whole 
system. While men knew living beings only as 
large, visible individuals they could safely assume 
that, because of man's superior intellectual abili- 
ties, he was a different being ; but now that we know 
that the large individuals consist but of a great 
number of cell individuals whose attributes, 
whether in man or in other inferior forms of life, 
are the same, there is not the same reason for sup- 
posing that the life giving principle of man, or the 
soul, is a spiritual substance which can exist in- 
dependent of the body and forever. This is the 
great conflict between symbolism and reality, be- 
tween spiritism and science. We can take a por- 
tion of the skin of an animal and graft it on man 
and it will continue to live: and this is only the 
beginning. This is the great stumbling block of 
spiritism ; the scientific discoveries about the na- 
ture of life, imperfect though they be. These dis- 
coveries must, they finally shall, overcome the 



THE CONFLICT 11 

thousands of years old mysticism. It is inevita- 
ble. Dogma, no matter how old, no matter what 
powerful organization is backing it, if false, must 
give way to truth ; powerful organization may pro- 
long the struggle, but it cannot avert its ultimate 
downfall. 

PERSISTENCE OF DOGM\TISM 

We are wont to call the Eastern nations dream- 
ers and mystics, and attribute it to a peculiar trait 
or cast of their minds. We forget that the East 
is the cradle of human knowledge and not of the 
human race. They were the first to attempt the 
solution of these vital everyday problems. All 
nature is full of mysteries, and, therefore, their 
undeveloped minds reveled in mysticism and 
dreams and shadowy forms. They are mystics to- 
day more on account of their conservatism than 
any peculiar mental trait ; on account of their 
strong faith and the tenacity with which they hold 
to their old solutions. They have acquired this 
tendency to mystic interpretations because of the 
dogmatism of faith. All faith is essentially re- 
actionary if its object is some dogma, because it 
ties the mind to its absolute assertion of truth. If 
the dogmas which faith teaches are absolute truths, 
as it is claimed, then the mind has reached its lim- 
its. A man must halt when he has reached his 
goal. But the intellect is not built that way ; 
it does not want rest ; it wants to delve and to in- 



12 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

quire. It did inquire and did find out many things 
which were irreconcilable with the assertions of 
faith. Social institutions bound the Eastern na- 
tions to their faiths and they remained stationary 
for thousands of years. Plato's separation of re- 
ligion from politics, possible because of the liberal 
political institutions prevailing in Greece, was the 
first entering wedge into this solid faith, which 
made possible the scientific researches of Western 
Europe. Were it not for the seed of discontent 
with established forms sowed by him and the other 
Greek philosophers, we would be mystics and 
dreamers as the Easterners are. Of course, this 
ancient protestantism had to come, as the mind 
cannot be chained down forever any more than a 
stream can be dammed up completely and per- 
manently. But at that, if we study carefully the 
Eastern symbolism by the light of our present 
knowledge, we must acknowledge that they were 
not very far from the position which we ought to 
take on these matters if we want to be consistent. 
Their theories clothed in symbolic garments were 
but attempts by their undeveloped intellects and 
their crude knowledge to explain the universality 
of life. The doctrine of the transmigration of 
souls, for example, is but such a symbolic repre- 
sentation of the universality of life adapted to the 
existing social needs in order to formulate rules 
of human conduct for the restraint of men in their 
daily intercourse with others. Take the Hebrew 
theory of immortality, elaborated by Christianity ; 



THE CONFLICT 13 

it is nothing but a symbolical representation of 
the same truth adapted to their habit of thought 
and social necessities. After death man's soul 
becomes united with God in the kingdom of heaven. 
This was but their unattainable ideal of re-estab- 
lishing their earthly kingdom, and another form 
of expressing the Brahmanistic theory of the re- 
turn of the spark of life to the eternal flame. Re- 
ligious beliefs always represent the ideal of exist- 
ing social conditions ; the after life, the materiali- 
zation of prevalent earthly desires. 

THE RELIGIOUS POSITION 

To the spiritists society is a more or less di- 
vinely ordered institution to work out man's su- 
pernatural destiny rather than to promote his wel- 
fare on this earth. Man's desires have always out- 
run the possibility of being satisfied; religion un- 
dertakes to satisfy them. But as every one's ex- 
perience demonstrates that this is not done in this 
life, religion holds out the hope of this satisfaction 
in after life. The tie of the society of the reli- 
gionists is brotherly love, and the laws are divine 
revelations whose wisdom cannot be questioned. 
The trials and worries of life are divine visitations 
to try men's souls and thus to prepare them for 
their future state. The life on this earth is but 
a preparation for after life. They avoid the 
question why such a probationary period should 
be necessary especially in view of the apparent fact 
that a great many seem to miss this supernatural 



14^ THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

destiny altogether. Everything is clothed in 
mystic garments : life's realities and verities are 
presented in symbols ; and this is persisted in even 
though scientific discoveries present the most po- 
tent arguments against them. Thus it can be as- 
serted with every reason for assurance that the 
story of the fall of Adam and Eve is but a myth, 
an allegorical representation of the development 
of the intellect in the course of evolution ; at any 
rate it cannot be supported by any argument that 
can stand the searchlight of logic ; and yet upon 
this fable rests the entire structure of Christian 
dogmas. If it were not for the fall in the garden 
of Eden, there would be no curses on mankind and 
there would be no need of atonement, no necessity 
for redemption, no Christ. Our scientific theory 
of the evolution of man takes us back to the time 
when he did not know good from evil ; that is, when 
he did not know his own nature, when he lived in 
herds from instinct and did not comprehend the 
relations which he thus established. Adam and 
Eve ate of the tree of knowledge and they knew 
good and evil ; that is, there was a period when 
this knowledge dawned upon man. The truth of 
the matter is that we are falling yet, because we 
are still learning concerning these things. 

It may be that simple and unquestioning faith 
was necessary to work out man's destiny in days 
when his mind was not capable of comprehending 
the reasons for the necessity of restraints upon his 
acts. It may be that it was necessary to smooth 



THE CONFLICT 15 

over the hard facts of life with glittering prom- 
ises of future rewards, and to set up the visions of 
dreamers and prophets as the guiding stars. But 
to what extent are these things necessary to-day? 
Are we bound to accept the same views and con- 
tent ourselves with the same promises? Must we 
look upon our existence on this earth as only a 
transitory period of preparation for a life of 
which we know nothing, or as a reality, whose ob- 
ject here is the promotion of the plans of the In- 
finite? What is an individual man in the immen- 
sity of the universe? No doubt he is necessary, 
yet it is the height of vanity for him to imagine 
that the preservation of his individuality ever en- 
tered into the plans of the Almighty. It is the 
height of presumption to expect the Infinite to 
exert himself particularly in the interest of some 
Croesus in order to protect his unjustly gotten 
property. Social living being one of the ways of 
promoting the purpose of life, its preservation, its 
proper and just rules and laws are of divine origin, 
in so far as man's intellect, which is a faculty de- 
veloped in man to devise or find out what is neces- 
sary and proper to attain this end, discovers them. 
In order to impress this truth upon the Israelites 
Moses, according to the Bible story, claimed to 
have received his code of laws while a thunder 
storm, a rare natural phenomenon in that region, 
raged around Mount Sinai. His exceptional ca- 
pacity perceived what was needed and necessary. 
Because his capacity was a natural gift, he can be 



16 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

truly called a man inspired. But in the march of 
evolution such individuals are but incidents ; they 
appear because they are necessary to guide the 
rest. If it had not been Moses, it would have been 
some one else (always supposing that Moses is a 
historical personality) ; if it had not been Jesus of 
Nazareth, it would have been some one else ; if it 
had not been Confucius, it would have been some 
one else. When the time is ripe to make a new 
step, there is always a man to take it. Every 
great movement was necessary and proper and a 
step forward. Men of destiny always appear 
when needed. Why, even Bismarck with his mili- 
taristic policy and Nietzsche with his philosophy 
of brutality can be considered as such men, to 
show to mankind most strikingly the folly of rule 
by force. Each sickness requires its own treat- 
ment. 

THE SCIENTIFIC POSITION 

Ever since the times of the Greek philosophers, 
science and religion, knowledge and faith, pursued 
their divergent ways, the distance between them 
ever widening, although the goal was the same, un- 
til to-day there seems to be no possibility of ever 
bringing them together. Science takes the dem- 
onstrated, reasonably certain facts about the uni- 
verse and out of them tries to formulate answers 
to those important questions, and to find solu- 
tions for everyday problems. 

Biology and chemistry have discovered certain 



THE CONFLICT 17 

facts about life; and, while they do not positively 
answer the question, they give us a clearer insight 
into it, and go farther to disproving the accepted 
theories of the spiritists. In fact, the latter can- 
not consistently maintain their position in view 
of these discoveries. The ultimate life individual 
is the cell, and the cell is the same essentially 
whether living alone or in conjunction with others, 
forming the large complex individuals. Why 
should the cells composing a man be enlivened with 
a principle which is immortal and not those of a 
horse, for example.'' Chemically and biologically 
they show the same attributes. Symbolism is 
powerless in the presence of this fact. The whole 
cannot be greater than any or all of its parts : if 
the cells are not immortal how can the complex 
individual consisting of these cells be? And if the 
cells composing man are immortal why not those 
composing animals .?* Furthermore, how can the 
soul of a man be one individual indivisible in after 
life, when in this life he is composed of millions 
of cells, each one a separate individual ? We could 
say with just as much reason that the spirit of the 
American nation as one whole can go to heaven or 
hell after it ceases to be a nation on this earth, and 
that there it will meet the souls of ancient Baby- 
lon, Assyria, Greece, Rome, etc. It is on this ques- 
tion of the nature of life that the two camps differ : 
religion, although with great reluctance, gave way 
to science in questions relating to the outside 
world, but, so far as man himself is concerned, it 



18 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

has not yielded up its primitive conceptions con- 
cerning the spiritual world. It still clings to its 
traditional ideas, although it has modified them 
considerably. This primitiveness of its theories 
constitutes its weakness, which will bring on its 
ultimate downfall, for many open minded men 
would, if these primitive ideas were discarded, sup- 
port religion wholeheartedly and enthusiastically. 
This uncompromising attitude on the part of re- 
ligious leaders will be ever in the way of recon- 
ciling science with religion. 

MATERIALISM 

On the other hand, a certain school of scientists 
have swung to the other extreme, to materialism. 
But these, too, have to face certain facts which 
are indisputable and which weaken their position. 
We all know that man is not matter and material 
force alone. Every man has experiences which 
cannot be explained by the physicist, the chemist 
or the biologist. Man is not merely a machine, 
or a chemical compound or a sack of protoplasm. 
All his acts are not reducible to mathematical 
formulas, as are the laws of the lever or of a 
chemical reaction. He is not all heat, light, elec- 
tricity or chemical affinity. He is first of all a 
complex being whose individuals develop under the 
apparent guidance of some controlling principle 
from one parent cell, during which process of 
evolution or growth selections are made, functions 
are assigned and organs are developed out of that 



THE CONFLICT 19 

simple parent cell. That cannot be attributed to 
light or electricity or chemical affinity. Then, 
each cell and the entire complex individual is 
capable of self-reproduction, something none of 
the other chemical and physical forces can do. 
Furthermore, men, and for that matter other ani- 
mals too, feel certain passions, desires : they can 
perceive, they are conscious, they have memory 
and reason. These cannot be explained with ma- 
terial forces. You can say that the optic nerve 
but conveys the vibrations of the light waves from 
the retina to the brain cells, but that itself is not 
the perception of light; you may say that diges- 
tion is but a species of decomposition through the 
action of the gastric juices but that does not ex- 
plain how the stomach came to be built so as to be 
able to secrete these juices; you may say that as- 
similation is but the absorption of food conveyed 
to the cell by the blood, but that does not explain 
why one cell will absorb only certain kinds of food 
and build up a compound of a certain chemical 
composition. Anger may show itself only as an 
unusual state of nervous excitation due to certain 
outside impressions, but that does not explain why 
this unusual excitation is produced, and why the 
same outside impressions will not produce the 
same unusual excitation in every individual. And 
there are all those other mental acts and expe- 
riences for which material science has not even 
attempted to find an explanation. True and sin- 
cere science is in doubt to-day, and materialism is 



20 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

untenable and narrow. Religion says " God " is 
everything ; materialism says there is no " God " ; 
science questions both. The truth, no doubt, lies 
somewhere between the two extremes. Religion 
says matter is corruption ; materialism answers 
matter is eternal; science says both of you seem 
to be right to some extent ; I do not know. Re- 
ligion says the soul is immortal; materialism says 
death ends all; science here interposes a positive 
assertion and says all life is persistent. 

THE MATERIALIST'S SOCIETY 

The materialists, or the rationalists, look upon 
society as an aggregation of men formed into an 
organization by a tacit agreement for the pur- 
pose of advancing their individual welfare by co- 
operation. In order to accomplish this a gov- 
ernment is established with powers to pass laws 
for the regulation of the conduct of the indi- 
viduals and to transact the necessary business. 
Theoretically that is true, but there are several 
factors which enter into the social intercourse 
which this theory leaves out of consideration. 
Whatever the form of government, whether it be 
absolutism or democracy, it is both impractical and 
impossible to pass laws regulating man's every act 
whose consequences may affect others. The civil 
law must confine itself to mere prohibitions ; it 
cannot prescribe rules of conduct imposing posi- 
tive duties upon all the individuals in their private 
intercourse with others. Any such attempts in the 



THE CONFLICT 21 

past proved futile. Then, the law cannot judge 
motives and intentions ; it can only pass upon the 
overt acts. There are innumerable acts harmful 
to others which, on that account, the law can 
neither prevent nor punish; on the other hand, it 
is powerless to force people to do acts beneficial 
to others, and yet the prevention of injurious acts 
alone cannot bring about the full fruition of the 
objects of co-operation. The enforcement of the 
law can produce only armed peace. But the main 
difficulty with which this theory has to contend is 
the impossibility of controlling and restraining 
the primordial passions by cold reasoning. In- 
nate in every man is the primal instinct of pres- 
ervation ; and this is the source of all the pas- 
sions which cause social troubles. There is greed, 
which is an overpowering desire to acquire and 
hoard up things necessary for the maintenance of 
life. We see its manifestation in the single cell 
when storing up fats, oils and starches within its 
sack, to be used when food cannot be obtained 
from the outside. The instinct of preservation is 
most selfish, and when allowed full sway the greed 
which it breeds has no consideration for others and 
is the source of nearly all the injustice per- 
petrated by men against their fellows. Society 
claims that, because of co-operation, it is not nec- 
essary for every man to strain all his efforts to 
store up necessaries for future use, to provide 
against barren times ; it tries to assure this supply, 
but the voice of reason is drowned in the presence 



22 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

of this overwhelming elemental passion. The 
sight of poverty and miserj'^ makes no impression 
on it. Anger, a powerful protective passion, has 
been greatly softened, not by reasoning, but by 
disuse, because society has nearly accomplished its 
objects of assuring personal security. Ambition, 
when its object is not to satisfy greed, but for per- 
sonal preferment, can also be very ruthless and 
destructive. Its limitation within the bounds of 
propriety cannot be well accomplished by reason- 
ing. It can also be traced to the instinct of self- 
preservation. Then there are the passions which 
are the means of promoting reproduction. They 
have been the source of a great deal of social dis- 
turbance. The male's and the female's desire for 
personal adornment is a natural one, an outgrowth 
of the reproductive instinct, and a great deal of 
injustice has been perpetrated and oppression 
practiced in order to satisfy it. 

III. RECONCILIATION 

All these instincts, passions and desires are 
great factors in the maintenance of proper social 
conditions, but are disregarded by the materialists 
and the rationalists. In this they are narrow and 
wrong. The religionists, whose main purpose is 
the regulation of these passions and their restric- 
tion within the bounds of necessity, would stand 
upon an immovable foundation, if they did not 
introduce into their system extraneous matters 
which weaken the whole structure. It is more im- 



THE CONFLICT 23 

portant to humanity to regulate man's conduct so 
as to promote its welfare in this state than to pre- 
pare him for a state concerning which he knows 
nothing. Man's destiny is here on earth, and if 
he reaches it he need not worry about what is 
going to happen after death. There being so 
much diversity of honest opinion about man's 
destiny, or rather about the means whereby it can 
be worked out, an infinitely just God can be 
trusted not to punish those who sincerely follow 
their own lights, even if they differ from others as 
to immaterial details. If religion confined itself 
to the cultivation of the sentiments which counter- 
act the passions, which in the past it has deified, 
it would do greater and more acceptable service 
for humanity than by occupying itself with specu- 
lations concerning the mysteries of nature, for 
which work it is not fitted and which it cannot 
solve. The regulation of conduct is more essen- 
tial than the preaching of dogmas, the curbing of 
human desires more beneficial than the practice of 
any particular ritual. George Washington had 
a true comprehension of the social necessities when 
he advised his countrymen not to neglect religion 
and morality, but he did not refer to any particu- 
lar religion nor advocate any set of dogmas. True 
science can be safely trusted to supply the neces- 
sary knowledge of human nature, of the universe 
and of the human relations upon which a rational 
system of ethics and a moral code can be built. 
True science is more reverent than dogmatism. 



M THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

Its very doubting attitude is beneficial because it 
leaves room for better comprehension of nature's 
laws and mysteries, while dogmatism by arrogat- 
ing to itself the knowledge of absolute truth stops 
further progress. If science were allowed to do the 
investigating of nature and religion confined itself 
to cultivating the necessary human sentiments, 
they, too, could work harmoniously side by side 
for the uplifting of the human race and the attain- 
ment of those ends for which man was put on this 
earth. 



CHAPTER II 
CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 

The purpose of a title is to serve as an index 
to the subject matter to be discussed. While the 
above title does not contain even a hint of the sub- 
ject matter, it, nevertheless, complies with the 
rule for the reason that the purpose of this discus- 
sion is simply to point certain analogies. The 
subjects of these analogies will be some of the 
cycles that we see about us. Analogies are similar 
to parallel lines : there must be a certain amount 
of difference between the subjects compared, just 
as there must be a distance between parallel lines. 
While not demonstrations, analogies can be of 
great assistance in the formation of conceptions 
of elusive subjects and may be very convincing 
arguments. 

The nature of man, of the universe and of God 
are riddles which man will never solve ; we will have 
theories, but that is all. To claim more is rank 
presumption, muzzling the intellect and preventing 
its further development. The speculation of these 
abstruse subjects is not all idle, for their compre- 
hension, as far as possible, has an important bear- 

25 



26 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

ing on our everyday life, on our relations to each 
other and on the regulation of our conduct. 
Moral responsibility is measured by our knowledge 
of these subjects. Neither religion nor science 
has yet advanced a theory that could stand the 
test of logic, taking into consideration our present 
knowledge. Take, for example, the argument of 
the chain of causes: the major, that everything is 
an effect of a pre-existing cause and a cause of a 
succeeding effect, is correct ; but the minor, that 
such a chain of causes cannot be continued indefi- 
nitely, is a pure assumption for which no valid ar- 
gument outside of revealed religion can be ad- 
vanced; hence, the conclusion that there must be 
a cause which is not at the same time an effect 
will not stand. And this argument is relied on to 
prove the theory of an extraneous personal God. 
It rests on a dogmatic assertion. Empirically we 
have acquired a certain amount of knowledge con- 
cerning the universe; through our consciousness 
and from everyday experiences we know a little 
more of ourselves ; but the nature of God will al- 
ways remain a matter of conjecture. No particu- 
lar theory is meant here by the term " God." Re- 
ligion draws upon the experiences of the human 
soul for facts upon which it builds its theory; 
science, upon the sensible universe. If the con- 
clusions of the two, when sincerely and earnestly 
sought, do not harmonize, neither has the right 
to condemn the other. Religion should not accuse 
science of atheism nor should science charge re- 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 27 

ligion with deception. They are both moving 
towards the same goal, although by different 
routes, and each should respect the honest opinions 
of the other. Science is debauched by charlatans 
and religion degraded by hypocrites, but because, 
of this neither can be indicted. To say " There is 
no God " is rank folly ; but it all depends what is 
meant by the term " God," what conception a man 
has formed of it. Study yourself and the outside 
world with a mind open to conviction, and you will 
find out the truth, you will find your God, the true 
one for you; for truth is subjective if thus found. 
We are in the world and of it, very intimately con- 
nected with everything in it, and yet we know only 
certain manifestations of the forces that sustain 
it and the effects of the laws that govern it ; of its 
ultimate composition, of its essence and underlying 
principles we know very little ; we know nothing 
of its beginning, or whether it had any, and can 
only guess vaguely at its end or whether it will 
have one in its present form. We only note con- 
tinual change. Why is it.'' Whence is it, ? What 
is it? These are vital questions, yet we can only 
conjecture the answers to them. It would be pre- 
sumption for any one to say that he has found 
their answers. " I think, therefore I am," says 
Des Cartes. That is the only fact that we are 
sure about and it is the beginning of our knowl- 
edge. 

The anthropomorphic idea of God and of his 
relations to the universe and to man satisfied the 



28 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

human mind when it conceived the earth as a flat, 
immovable surface over which the stars hung Hke 
so many lamps from the dome of the firmament 
and when monarchies were prevalent, but since we 
learned more about these things and since democ- 
racy is spreading, we think that such a conception 
is rather small and we feel that we have outgrown 
the necessity for symbolical representation. We 
do not want to think of God as a mechanic build- 
ing the world out of nothing and occasionally wind- 
ing it up to make it go, or as a tyrant ruling man- 
kind by his absolute decrees ; it does not quite 
square up with our standards of the attributes of 
the Infinite, of our ideal of what God should be. 
And this is no blasphemy ; it is due rather to a 
more exalted idea of God. Besides, there is such 
a diversity of opinion among the religious advo- 
cates. Because we know ourselves through our 
consciousness and introspection and through the 
investigations into the nature of man externally, 
we know more about man than any other thing or 
being. All our speculations and investigations 
resolve themselves and stop at one concrete ques- 
tion: what is hfe.'* If we could find a satisfactory 
answer to this one question we would gain a clearer 
insight into the natures of the other subjects of 
our inquiry. 

1. THE THREE PRIMARY NOTIONS 

All our knowledge of the external world is re- 
ducible to three primary conceptions: motion. 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 29 

inertia and action. Objectively they stand for 
the general and most apparent attributes of force, 
the active, and matter, the passive, principles of 
the universe. They may be but one substance, but 
if it were not for the action of one upon the other 
we could know nothing about them. The correla- 
tive of action is reaction, and they go together; 
force manifests itself as motion, action, and mat- 
ter as inertia, reaction. We can safely conclude 
that, so far as our present knowledge goes, neither 
force nor matter can exist independently. The 
action of force upon matter and the reaction of 
matter produce changes which make them per- 
ceptible to us. Neither could be perceived by us 
alone, because neither alone could make an impres- 
sion on our perceptive organs, which are composed 
of matter and force. To make an impression, the 
external forces, acting through matter, must make 
impressions on the matter composing our percep- 
tive organs ; the action and reaction induced in 
them produce changes which are perceived by the. 
sensitive faculty. These impressions, assisted by 
memory, are the sources of our knowledge. The 
perceptions of one moment are retained by the 
memory and compared with the perceptions of an- 
other moment, and the differences are noted. 
Those perceptions and the differences in them we 
analyze and then form our ideas, deduce our prin- 
ciples and laws. But they all rest solely upon our 
observations of the action of force upon matter, 
of motion and inertia. 



30 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

Take, for example, a stone lying on the surface 
of the earth ; that gives us no indication of the 
presence of the force of gravity. If everything 
lay flat on the surface of the earth we could never 
know that there is such a force. If we place this 
stone upon our hands, we feel pressure, and if we 
withdraw our hands from under it the stone will 
move towards the earth. If the hand is unsup- 
ported, the weight will be felt by the exertion of 
our muscles to arrest the motion towards the earth. 
Thus we gain our ideas of gravity. But this mo- 
tion is but the result, the manifestation of the 
force of gravity, and it gives us no inkling of its 
essence. All the rest of our knowledge concern- 
ing gravitation, no matter how advanced, no mat- 
ter into what intricate mathematical formulas it 
is put, is traceable to these simple experiments. 
Place a piece of wood opposite the poles of a mag- 
net, and it could rest there for centuries without 
giving any indication of the presence of the force 
of magnetism. But if we place a piece of iron 
there, we shall note the movement and from further 
investigations shall gain our knowledge of mag- 
netism. It is always motion overcoming inertia, 
the action of force upon matter. No amount of 
abstraction, experimenting and generalizing will 
reveal to us the essence of the force of magnetism 
or what it really is. We can only theorize, and 
theories are valuable only so long as they can 
serve as explanations for the greatest number of 
phenomena. And it will not do to say that we 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 31 

cannot acquire any other kind of knowledge, for, 
taking the general for granted, we can form ac- 
curate ideas of the particular. Thus we can form 
an exact idea of the nature of a table, for instance, 
if we take matter and force for granted. Then 
there is the science of mathematics, which does not 
consist only of observing results ; we know the es- 
sence of numbers. A proposition in geometry 
does not depend upon the observations of the ac- 
tion of force upon matter; we may represent a 
proposition visually, but that is not absolutely 
necessary for its comprehension. Then there are 
the rules of logic ; they do not depend upon any 
material objects. 

CLASSIFICATION OF NATURAL PHENOMENA 

Chemistry classified the different forms of mat- 
ter into elements and compounds ; that is nothing 
more than the classification of the observations of 
the changes produced by force upon matter. It 
knows nothing of the essence of matter; nor do 
its observations disclose its essence, for the simple 
reason that it studies merely manifestations 
through action and reaction, and the impressions 
these make upon the sensitive organs. The de- 
ductions formed from these observations are mere 
suppositions. Physics has classified force into 
different kinds : gravitation, electricity, mag- 
netism, light and heat ; but these, too, are but 
classifications of the different actions of force upon 
matter, the grouping under proper headings of 



32 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

these various observations. Whether essentially 
these forces are but one, just as whether all the 
different chemical elements are but one, we know 
not. From the knowledge we gain from experience 
we pre-arrange conditions, and if we get expected 
results they serve to confirm our theories ; if not, 
a new field for speculation is opened. The classifi- 
cation of force and matter by both these sciences 
rests upon the persistence of expected results un- 
der given conditions. If the results never vary, 
we say that we know a certain " law " ; if something 
happens differently, this " law " is thereby re- 
pealed. For example, if a stone, after undergo- 
ing a certain process, is resolved into iron and 
other compounds and we know of no process by 
which we can reduce the iron into simpler forms, 
we say that iron is an element; should somebody 
find out such a process, and we cannot tell but that 
somebody will, iron as we know it now will become 
a compound. There is the black and vile smelling 
coal tar; from it the most brilliant colors and 
sweetest smelling substances without number have 
been produced; it can hardly be claimed that it is 
a mixture of all these things ; all depends upon the 
process, and we cannot tell what other substances 
will yet be made out of it. If matter, after being 
subjected to certain manipulations, shows certain 
results, we call it one kind of force, if to a different 
manipulation and it shows different results, we 
call it a different force. Thus iron will become 
magnetic if brought into contact with electricity 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 33 

and luminous if subjected to heat. And all this is 
always reducible to the three primary notions: 
motion, inertia and action. From experiments and 
our general knowledge we form deductions, we 
generalize them, we group these persistent results 
and constant manifestations, and we call them the 
principles and laws of force and matter: on these 
we build our theories of force and matter, of the 
universe, of ourselves and of God. That is the 
extent of our scientific knowledge. 

Our perceptive organs are the meeting places 
between the actions of the external forces and the 
actions of the cells of perception. Sensitiveness 
is a protoplasmic attribute. It, too, is but a 
manifestation of the action of force upon matter, 
of inertia and motion. Studying it in others, we 
can know it only as a change induced by the action 
of force upon matter; in ourselves, we know it 
through consciousness. Here again we are against 
an insurmountable obstacle: what is conscious- 
ness? When we study it in others we perceive 
it only through its results ; we cannot tell how the 
conscious individual feels about it. We presume 
it is the same as we do ; but we know nothing, nor 
can we conceive the kind of consciousness animals 
experience, — and, no doubt, they are conscious 
too. In contemplating our own consciousness we 
have nothing to compare it with. When uncon- 
scious, we know nothing; it is rest, it is nothing. 
Consciousness is one of the three facts which we 
must take for granted, together with matter and 



34 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

force. They are the x, y and z of our knowl- 
edge concerning the world. We can use them in 
the same way as the mathematician uses his un- 
known quantities. 

II. LIFE A FORM OF FORCE 

Externally we know life as we do any other 
force, by its action upon matter and the changes 
it produces in it. It is motion overcoming inertia. 
It is action. After we discard all its peculiarities, 
that is all we have left. We have given specific 
names to all the other groups of such manifesta- 
tions, why should we call this group anything else 
but a force? One group of manifestations we 
call electricity, another heat, another light, — why 
cannot we do the same with the life group .^^ It 
would avoid a good deal of confusion. Say that 
life is a force that manifests itself thus and so ; it 
overcomes inertia in such and such a way. We 
can then follow it through all the different stages 
of evolution and growth, just as we can trace the 
history of the manner in which man made use of 
electricity, magnetism or heat. We can study its 
different manifestations, its attributes, as we do 
those of any other force. Essentially there is but 
one form of life ; its growth and development con- 
sisted only in forming complex and more efficient 
individuals. Its principal attribute is spon- 
taneity, that is, an inherent ability to keep active. 
This attribute is at the root of evolution, which 
was not along the lines of the universal form but 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 35 

only in creating ever more and more efficient in- 
dividuals. It is the most efficient form of force. 
It appeared last on the earth, because during the 
formative period the inertia to be overcome was 
less. And it grew into knowledge itself: knowl- 
edge of the laws of motion and of inertia, so as to 
be better able to overcome it. 

Why try to make something supernatural out 
of the life force .? If it acted independently of the 
other forms of force, or if it manifested itself only 
in thinking man, there would be no objection to 
this. But we see the same identical manifesta- 
tions in all manner of beings to whom we deny su- 
pernatural qualities. We see the same force in the 
plants and in animals possessing the same or sim- 
ilar faculties, differing only in the degree of their 
efficiency and powers. In its simple form it is 
universal. It perpetuates itself not only in man 
but in all the other forms also : in plants even more 
rapidly than in animals. The process of repro- 
duction is similar ; new individuals come into being 
from old ones without any apparent loss in the 
faculties of the parents. The animals possess the 
same sensitive faculties, and it is but fair to pre- 
sume that they, too, are conscious of their ex- 
istence ; they have memory. Some of them dis- 
play marked signs of intelligence and even rea- 
son. Again the difference is only in degree. It 
is no aspersion on the omnipotence of the Almighty 
to say that all the beauty and magnificence that 
we see around us is but the same principle dis- 



36 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

played in an infinite number of varieties. On the 
other hand, it is not so humiliating to think that 
we are the highest form of the manifestations of 
that same force. Matter is not so corrupt as 
some would have it. It is just as essential to the 
existence of man as the soul is. Its supposed cor- 
ruption is but another form of the same force that 
produces all the beauty, and what is to-day an 
offensive decomposing carcass may be the integral 
part of a saint to-morrow. The universe is all 
pure, all holy ; it is the emanation of but one God. 
It is God in action. There is but one logical con- 
clusion : either all life is immortal or none. 

On the other hand, the scientists are also nar- 
row and inconsistent in trying to explain life 
merely as the combination of the other forces. 
To the different effects of force upon matter they 
give specific names ; they classify the different 
groups of manifestations and call them different 
forces. And there are reasons for such classifica- 
tions. These forces have well defined attributes 
and peculiarities. Gravity and, under the atomic 
theory, chemical affinity produce circular motion ; 
they are both centrifugal and centripetal and may 
be called the rigid forces. Electricity and its 
companion, magnetism, produce lineal motion; 
they are bi-polar; because of the manner in which 
they communicate along lines of least resistance 
from one unit to another they may be called fluent 
forces. Heat and its companion, light, act only 
in straight lines but in all directions and are ra- 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 37 

diant forces. The principal characteristic of life 
is spontaneity, which enables it to form units or 
individuals, and it may be called spontaneous, self- 
preserving force. Neither the physical nor the 
chemical forces have this attribute of spontaneity, 
of automatically forming new centers or units or 
individuals, and they, therefore, cannot of them- 
selves preserve their activity. The chemist can- 
not produce a single atom, nor the physicist a sin- 
gle center of force ; they can only induce changes 
or arrange conditions through which their forces 
will then manifest themselves. The fundamental 
principle of chemistry is that nothing is anni- 
hilated, and in physics we have the principle of 
the conservation of energy; life shows a similar 
attribute of persistence. Why, then, not call life 
a specific force.? We know it in the same way as 
the other forces and its special attributes are suf- 
ficient to distinguish it from them. Is it just be- 
cause there is an intimate connection between it 
and the other forces .f* There is an interdepend- 
ence between all. Because a tree conveys its sap 
from the roots by means of capillary attraction, 
that does not explain how these capillaries were 
formed. Because digestion is but a chemical re- 
action, that does not explain how the stomach can 
produce the necessary reagents to make such a 
reaction possible. Because the heart acts like a 
pump, that does not explain how it was made a 
pump. 

The advocates of both these views seem for some 



38 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

reason or other to be unwilling to make conces- 
sions. The spiritists want to make man some- 
thing altogether different from the rest of the visi- 
ble universe, and the scientists do not want to con- 
cede that he is different from the other manifesta- 
tions. To that extent they both seem to be 
wrong. But it would do no violence to the views 
of either if it be conceded that life is a material 
force, because it must have matter to subsist, hav- 
ing its own peculiar qualities. Call it a spirit if 
you wish, and no violence will be done to the sci- 
entists' views. Why should it, if they call one 
form by one name and another by another name? 
As the scientists must concede that the life mani- 
festations differ in some respects from those of 
the other forces, the spiritists could accept the 
view that life is a material force. The spiritist 
cannot get away from the important fact that life 
shows itself not only in man but in other beings, 
and that it acts through matter, and the scientist 
cannot get away from the fact that none of his pet 
forces have the power of automatic reproduction 
and sensitiveness. Why should they be at log- 
gerheads ? 

UNIVERSAL LIFE 

The cell is the universal, the simplest form of 
life. In its study we must look for the solution 
of the question what life is. Of course, here again 
we can study only action and reaction, its attri- 
butes, properties, peculiarities and manifestations ; 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 39 

its action as a force upon matter, as motion and 
inertia. Chemists and biologists tell us that a cell 
is a microscopic quantity of viscid, translucent 
compound having a membranous wall, or sack, 
which keeps it separate from the surrounding sub- 
stances and from other cells, showing certain well 
defined characteristics. These characteristics we 
know from their actions and reactions, which are 
the same as with other forces, motion overcoming 
inertia. These actions are either physical, as au- 
tomatic movement, or chemical, as assimilation of 
food, excretion of by-products and secretion of 
certain compounds. Besides these, the cell exhib- 
its two other peculiarities : sensitiveness and spon- 
taneous multiplication of individuals. Chemists 
tell us that all these properties are due to a certain 
chemical compound called proteid, and they fur- 
ther say that if they could make it synthetically 
they would produce life in the laboratory. Their 
success along other lines makes them ambitious, 
but they overlook the one important fact that 
none of their forces possess the attribute of spon- 
taneity. Even when experimenting with their own 
pets they only evoke dormant pre-existing forces. 
If life showed itself only in this simple form, there 
might, at that, be some hope for their contention ; 
but how can they instill into their forces the ca- 
pacity for coordinating functions which we see in 
the complex individuals? Of course, there is 
much interdependence between life and the other 
forces, and it would not be straining the point to 



40 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

say that when conditions are unfavorable for the 
manifestations of force in the specific way which 
we call life, it shows itself in some other form. 
After life ceases, a very active chemical reaction 
sets in and some heat and even light in the free 
form are given out, just as electricity may be re- 
duced into light and heat by resistance; but that 
is not sufficient ground for believing that the proc- 
ess can be reversed, and that by synthesis a qual- 
ity which is possessed by no other force can be 
instilled into a chemical compound: it would be 
creating, and the chemists themselves say that 
they cannot do that. 

THE PROPERTIES OF UNIVERSAL LIFE 

A life individual, or cell, is a microscopic quan- 
tity of matter maintaining a separate existence 
by virtue of the force subsisting in it, capable of 
transforming extraneous substances into its own 
by chemical processes and having the powers of 
automatic movement, sensitiveness and spontane- 
ous reproduction of individuals similar to itself. 
Assimilation is a chemical reaction peculiar to life ; 
it is neither combination, nor decomposition nor 
substitution. The cell selects the necessary ele- 
ments out of the surrounding substances and forms 
them into its compounds. Some cells can do this 
out of inorganic compounds, others need previous 
life compounds. It resembles substitution, except 
that in the latter two new compounds are formed 
while the cell retains its original composition. 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 41 

Respiration and excretion, sometimes classed sepa- 
rately, are but the companion reactions of as- 
similation ; the former consists of taking up free 
oxygen, the latter is but the discarding of the 
unnecessary ingredients. While secretion is also 
but a chemical reaction, it differs from such 
ordinary processes and even from the other chem- 
ical reactions of the life force in that it is done 
also for the specific purpose of perpetuating life. 
It is the first attribute which in the higher forms 
grew into those qualities which we call immaterial. 
It is the first sign of spontaneity. What the cell 
does not need for its immediate necessities it stores 
away for future use in the shape of assimilable 
compounds, as oils, starches, and so on. The 
power of automatic movement is a protective fac- 
ulty. Its purpose is to protect the cell against 
the loss of its activity by enabling it to seek loca- 
tions favorable for its existence and to avoid dan- 
gers. It developed into the faculty of volition 
and the wonderful mechanism of locomotion in 
the complex individuals. Sensitiveness is another 
very important protective faculty of protoplasm. 
Its purpose is to guard life against external in- 
juries which might cause its destruction. Its col- 
lective result in complex beings is the senses, 
memory, consciousness, and even the intellect of 
man. In the single cell it manifests itself in ar- 
rest of motion and the other normal activities. 
These faculties are the means whereby life as it 
manifests itself in the cell keeps active. They en- 



42 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

able it to accommodate itself to external condi- 
tions, which no other form of force can do. Be- 
cause of them we see life evolving out of the simple, 
inefficient forms into the complex, efficient forms, 
ever devising ways and means of eliminating, 
chance ; and even these faculties developed to the 
full measure of their efficiency only gradually and 
singly. In the simple bacterial forms the faculty 
of reproduction is relied on mainly and reaches its 
height of development in the large plants ; in the 
animals automatic movement and sensitiveness 
were developed, reaching their fullest growth in 
reasoning man. Because of these attributes, life 
can adapt itself to varying external conditions. 
We see this attribute of adaptability well illus- 
trated in the ways that are devised to repair in- 
juries, or the power of healing. In plants, for 
example, we see new growing points or roots grow 
when the old ones have been destroyed or removed ; 
injuries to the bark are healed by exuding liquids 
which protect the exposed parts of the delicate 
tissues ; and the ways devised in animals are be- 
yond number. In the lower types, even new or- 
gans are grown. And the cells which are instru- 
mental in performing these healing processes 
would never have done such work if no injury had 
been inflicted, and may never do it again ; and all 
this is done by these cells without really under- 
standing the work, just as naturally as when a 
magnetic unit attracts a piece of iron to itself. 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 43 

The protoplasmic faculty of reproduction more 
than any other single faculty accomplishes the 
grand purpose of life, its preservation in active 
form, to the extent even that we can say that the 
life in the cell is immortal; for every cell now in 
existence has a part of the life of cells that existed 
eons ago. It is a mathematical axiom that by 
halving the half the end can never be reached, and 
cells multiply by dividing into two. The more 
individuals there are, the more subjects there are 
for the life force to manifest itself and the greater 
the chances for finding favorable surroundings. 
Multiplication of individuals increases the chances 
of preservation. How important this is we can 
see in the case of magnetism : before man knew 
about it and began to create favorable conditions, 
it hardly ever manifested itself on the earth ; now 
it is everywhere. It took another magnet to dis- 
cover its existence in the earth itself. It might 
not have existed at all. Taking all these faculties 
into consideration, life is certainly the most effi- 
cient force, although it is not the most intense, as 
heat, for example, will destroy it, just as it will 
magnetism. Life effectuates best the essential 
attributes of force, activity, or overcoming iner- 
tia. It also enables force to manifest itself more 
plentifully. Life, then, essentially is self-perpetu- 
ating and immortality is its chief quality ; that is, 
general life is such, for individuals are but inci- 
dents. 



44 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 



THE DEATH OF A CELL 

When conditions become unfavorable the cell 
dies. What is death? In a simple cell it is the 
cessation of the individual manifestation of the 
life force and of the phenomena by which we know 
of its existence. In that respect life is no differ- 
ent from any other force. We do not know what 
happens to it, just as we do not know what hap- 
pens with the magnetism in a bar of steel after it 
is heated or oxidized, when it ceases to be percepti- 
ble. We do not know what becomes of the elec- 
tricity after it is discharged or why there is such 
a thing as a discharge. We say that it becomes 
neutralized, but that is only juggling with terms. 
Favorable conditions are necessary for all the 
forms of force to manifest themselves. Life can 
be active only in certain chemical compounds un- 
der certain conditions of heat, just as magnetism 
shows itself only in certain elements. We do not 
know the reason for either. Certain chemical 
compounds are good conductors of heat or elec- 
tricity. Why? We do not know. Shall we? 
Perhaps. Why not? Possibly it is due to the 
peculiar manner in which force acts upon matter 
to form that particular element or compound. 
Lacking the necessary matter in a certain condi- 
tion, no force can be perceptibly active. It is the 
same with life. Take the Protococcus, for exam- 
ple, the simplest form of life ; give it matter in a 
certain state of solution, heat and light, that is. 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 45 

force in a certain form, and it will thrive ; deprive 
it of these and it will cease to show any of the at- 
tributes of life ; it will die. But even after death 
we still perceive a certain force very actively en- 
gaged in forming new compounds of the matter 
which was the subject of the life force. Can we 
say that the life force, conditions becoming unfa- 
vorable, shows itself as chemical action? While 
alive, the group of phenomena we perceived we 
called life ; after death there is another group of 
phenomena, which we call decomposition, a chem- 
ical reaction. A certain amount of the heat 
which was absorbed during the life is given out 
in a free state until inertia so far overcomes force 
that what are called stable compounds are formed. 
We see similar happenings in the case of other 
forces. By resistance electricity is reduced into 
light and heat, which, under the wave theory, are 
but waves of lesser frequency. According to the 
principle of conservation of energy, force is not 
created or annihilated ; unless we apply the same 
principle to the death of Protococcus, we should 
have an instance of the annihilation of something 
that exhibited the same qualities as other forms of 
force, motion overcoming inertia. The other 
forces, we say, become only inactive, to be again 
called into activity by favorable conditions ; they 
are supposed to change form only. Why cannot 
we say the same of the life force.'' In neither case 
is there an annihilation of force, only the destruc- 
tion of an individual, which is but a condition. So 



46 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

that we can say that death is but the destruction 
of a single favorable condition for the manifesta- 
tion of life, a change from favorable to unfavor- 
able. 

III. DEVELOPMENT OF DIFFERENT KINDS 
OF LIFE 

But the multiplication of cell individuals, even 
when protected by these faculties, did not fully 
assure the continuous activity of the life force. 
The existence of the cell was till precarious, 
depending on chance for favorable surround- 
ings. To eliminate chance as much as pos- 
sible, utilizing the innate ability of accommodat- 
ing itself to conditions, life evolved the complex 
individual. The varieties we see in the simple 
forms were developed by external surroundings, 
and that was left to chance. The cells, then, 
pooled their abilities by forming multicellular or- 
ganisms ; each constituent cell, however, continued 
to live the same as it did before such a union. 
And the cells continued to assimilate and repro- 
duce ; they surrendered mutually to each other 
only the other protective faculties and developed 
them into specialized functions. All the other 
forces depend altogether on chance for an oppor- 
tunity to be active ; so do the bacterial forms of 
life to some extent. Millions of cells are whipped 
about the streets quiescent until, by accident, they 
settle in some pool of water where they find the 
necessary nourishment and they then begin to as- 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 47 

similate and to multiply. The simplest multi- 
cellular being is better off in this respect. The 
Spirogyra, for example, consisting only of sim- 
ple cells joined to each other end to end, is better 
assured of its existence because it attaches itself 
to some object and thus remains in the water alive, 
at least as long as there is water, under conditions 
which were favorable enough to start it growing. 
In the higher forms of organized life all the or- 
gans have but this one end in view: the preserva- 
tion of the individual and, through it, universal 
life. They are the collective result of the primal 
faculties of the protoplasm composing the cells. 
They procure, prepare and distribute the neces- 
sary food for all the cells and do all such other 
things for the protection of the entire individual 
as the cells would have done for themselves to the 
extent of their capacities, were they living singly. 
Naturally they are more efficient because of their 
united efforts and concentrated abilities. The 
evolution of the organized beings had only this 
aim in view : to develop a form of life which would 
be efficient enough to maintain itself under all con- 
ditions. 

The universal form of life, the cell, is the same 
to-day as it was eons ago ; evolution was along 
lines of greater efficiency, ever providing for new 
contingencies and leaving less to chance. The 
higher we go in the scale of life the clearer this 
becomes. Passing over the simpler forms, we can 
readily see that a tree, for example, can better 



48 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

maintain itself than the yeast plant, which de- 
pends upon the caprice of the housewife whether 
she feels like baking bread. As soon as the seed 
of a tree finds a suitable place, — and what in- 
genious devices were used to do this ! — it germi- 
nates and sends its roots into the moist strata of 
the earth, thereby assuring to itself a more per- 
manent supply of water. Because it is rooted to 
a place which was suitable for germination, it also 
assured itself a plentiful supply of food. A cell 
floating aimlessly in a pool of water is not so for- 
tunate. And we do not want to concede even in- 
stinct to the plants. 

ANIMAL LIFE 

The chemical reaction in plants is synthetical, 
that is, they form their compounds out of min- 
erals, and their rapid multiplication, which in 
plants seem to be the principal means of preserva- 
tion, by reason of tying up the necessary elements 
would soon have exhausted the supply and ex- 
posed them to extinction. Decomposition was a 
slow process. Neither the explosive yeast plants 
nor the carrion-feeding fungi were sufficient to 
decompose the dead matter rapidly enough, so 
that another form, plant-destroying in its proc- 
esses, had to be evolved. The animals fill this 
want. The chemical processes in animals are an- 
alytical; the organic compounds are decomposed 
during the digestive and assimilative processes 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 49 

into compounds that can again be used by the 
plants. Thus matter is kept whirling around a 
cycle: from a free-state into plants, from the 
plants to animals, and from them back again into 
the plants, — and thereby force has assured itself 
of favorable conditions to keep active. During 
this cycle a certain amount of matter goes into 
stable, unassimilable compounds, but the intellect 
of man is ever devising means of releasing them 
again. In the plant life plentiful secretion and 
rapid multiplication were relied upon to keep life 
active, to the neglect of the other protective facul- 
ties, sensitiveness and automatic motion ; in the 
animal life these are relied upon more than the 
former, and are developed to their limits. The 
protoplasmic faculty of automatic locomotion de- 
veloped into volition and all the complicated ma- 
chinery which enable the animal to go in search 
of food ; sensitiveness developed into the organs 
of perception and into the intellect itself. The 
primal attributes of secretion, excretion and as- 
similation produced the mechanism by which food 
is prepared and distributed to all the cells. Even 
the social instinct, where it exists, can be attrib- 
uted to this pooling of the individual powers of 
the cells, as it, too, aims to accomplish the grand 
purpose of life, its preservation, and is but the 
extension to the complex individuals of the co- 
operation of the cells. 



50 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

CELL COOPERATION 

Thus we see associated together innumerable 
cells to assure themselves of their existence. They 
have distributed this work of preservation among 
themselves ; some specialized in one kind and oth- 
ers in another kind of work. Some furnish the 
necessary framework on which the mechanism of lo- 
comotion is built ; some supply the power to this 
mechanism to enable it to move after and to seize 
the food, and for defense; some secrete juices the 
action of which converts the raw food into assimi- 
lable form ; some distribute the nourishment to the 
cells ; some eliminate the by-products and the ref- 
use ; some store up the surplus to be used in times 
of scarcity ; some stand guard and destroy outside 
intruders, even by sacrificing their own lives ; some 
produce the required elements of reproduction ; 
and some receive impressions of the outside world, 
convey them to others whose function it is to per- 
ceive them, to store them up and to use them for 
the protection of the entire organization. And 
yet the cell in the brain of man, whose duty it is to 
form ideas, selects from the food supplied the nec- 
essary ingredients in the same manner as one lo- 
cated in the sole of the foot whose work is merely 
to protect the vital parts of the skin from injury; 
and this is done in the same manner as by the Pro- 
tococcus wriggling about in a stagnant pool of 
water. They all reproduce in the same manner. 
But there is this difference between the cell in the 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 51 

organized being and the Protococcus, that the 
former exercises only one of the primal protective 
faculties of its protoplasm for the benefit of all 
and receives in return the benefit of their labors, 
while a single cell exercises all of its faculties and 
depends entirely upon its own exertions. By co- 
operation the existence of all is more assured. As 
these compound individuals evolved, this certainty 
became greater and greater. The physical and 
the chemical forces depend entirely on chance be- 
cause they lack this ability of accommodating 
themselves to circumstances and they cannot re- 
produce active units ; because the life force pos- 
sesses these protective faculties it is able to adapt 
itself to varying conditions and can keep active. 
Because the cell can reproduce it is more certain 
of preserving its activity than an electric unit. 
The cell in a tree is more certain than a single cell, 
because it is part of an organization whose roots 
search out the soil for food and whose wide 
spreading branches reach out into the air and by 
means of leaves procure the necessary oxygen and 
carbon ; the cell in the stomach of a horse is still 
more certain, because it is a part of a community 
whose faculty of locomotion is well developed, en- 
abling it to seek out its food, and whose sensitive- 
ness developed into the senses and memory and a 
certain amount of intelligence, which enable it to 
remember good pastures, to recognize harmful 
substances and to defend itself against outside 
enemies ; the cell in the brain of man is the most 



52 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

certain, because man has not only the other pro- 
tective faculties of the animals well developed, but 
because of his high intelligence he is best able to 
procure food and to defend himself, and because 
he has the social instinct and its concomitant sen- 
sibilities and sentiments which prompt him to live 
in a well governed community whose laws he is able 
to understand. The cells unconsciously submit to 
this necessity of cooperation and seldom do any- 
thing contrary to the well-being of all. Men, be- 
cause of their intelligence, need rules of conduct, 
for they do many things which they know to be de- 
structive of life and contrary to the principles of 
cooperation. Thus we can say that the majestic 
orbs in the heaven revolve around their centers, 
that the earth swings in its yearly orbit around 
the sun and replenishes its stores with all its fruits, 
that empires rise and fall, that millions of men ex- 
pend all their energies in the pursuits of com- 
merce, that man's mighty intellect scrutinizes the 
mysteries of nature in order that a cell in man's 
toe may be assured of its existence. And no won- 
der that there is so much anxiety for its existence, 
as the life that animates it animates all the other 
living things that we know of, and if they all died, 
the most efficient form of the active principle of 
the universe would cease to manifest itself on 
earth. That is why life is self-preserving. That 
is why there is variety and beauty. If it were not 
for its powers of accommodating itself to chang- 
ing conditions, because of its protective faculties, 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 53 

the earth would be barren and would have turned 
into a waste so long ago that we have no adequate 
term in our language for such a period. 

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 

Where does this life come from? Where does, 
the heat, electricity or magnetism come from? I 
pass a piece of iron across a magnetic or electric 
field: it becomes magnetized too. Where did that 
magnetism come from? I withdraw it from these 
fields and the magnetism vanishes. Where did it 
go? If it had been a piece of steel it would have 
preserved the magnetism even when out of the field. 
I charge a Leyden jar: it shows certain phenom- 
ena which I call electricity ; I discharge the jar and 
the electricity is gone. Where did the sun get 
its heat and light? What becomes of it in in- 
finite space? We see a rose sprout, bloom and 
produce seed: what made it do so? I throw it 
into the fire: what becomes of it? Scientists tell 
us that their forces exist universally and that they 
become active when conditions are favorable : why 
not say the same of life force, concerning which 
we know just as much, or just as little, if you 
want to put it that way, as we know about the 
other forces, and which we come to know in the 
same way? We know them all because they pro- 
duce motion which overcomes inertia. Electricity 
shows one set of phenomena, magnetism another, 
heat still another, and life again another set. 
There is a certain interdependence among them 



54 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

all, from which we may fairly conclude that es- 
sentially they are one. Is, then, life an orphan? 
Why should the scientists, who study matter and 
force, cast it away? And why should we make 
something supernatural of it, when it is the same 
as the others and just as natural? It differs from 
them only in its efficiency. Life is in the world 
and of it ; why try to make anything else out of it? 
Why go outside of the universe? The universe, 
although it is constituted of matter also, is noble 
enough for any man to be a part of. And we 
certainly ought to be glad that we are. 

DEATH OF COMPLEX LIFE 

When the cell organization works perfectly, all 
the cells performing their allotted functions and 
duties, the animal is healthy and happy in the joy 
of living. The force that is in it is active, which 
is according to its nature. But in time foreign 
substances are introduced into the system ; sand is 
thrown into the machinery ; unnoticed by the sen- 
tinels that stand guard, the senses, or by decep- 
tion, strange cells enter into the body and take 
advantage of the plentiful supply of rich food that 
is ready for them in such a favorable form, and 
sickness and distress follow. The body is re- 
sourceful ; the primal protective attributes of pro- 
toplasm assert themselves ; new and special means 
of defense are provided according to the necessity ; 
the intruders are destroyed and eliminated and the 
damage done by them repaired. Sometimes the 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 55 

attack is so sudden and persistent that death, or 
the cessation of the manifestations of the life 
force, follows. Because of his freedom of action, 
man sometimes introduces very harmful substances 
into his body either through ignorance or wilfully, 
because of the greater degree of temporary activ- 
ity they induce, which constitutes their pleasure. 
This throws a greater burden upon the eliminating 
organs or the whole body is harmfully affected by 
them, to the detriment of the entire organization. 
Wilfully or through ignorance man will deprive 
the cells of the rest necessary for rebuilding their 
structures, wasted through great exertion ; this 
weakens the entire organism. Thus man shortens 
his own life and finally kills himself. This is the 
great unpardonable sin, which will surely revenge 
itself, and which cannot be forgiven because its 
effect is the dissolution of the individual, who can 
never be reassembled again. If we could main- 
tain ideal conditions, with our knowledge of the 
working of the human body, — and that is why we 
have the intellect, — our individual bodies would 
live forever. Statistics prove that the rate of 
human mortality has materially decreased and the 
average life has been lengthened within the last 
hundred years because of our knowledge of the 
needs of our bodies. Life is as eternal as is the 
universe ; death is an accident which we have not 
as yet learned to avoid. In the scheme of the 
universe it is immaterial whether life manifests 
itself through Smith or Jones or any other person 



56 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

or living being. The life that is in us to-day is 
the same that enlivened our ancestors eons ago, in 
whatever form they existed, and will enliven our 
descendants countless years hence, whatever the 
shape they will assume. Why, then, say that our 
lives began with our conceptions and will end with 
our deaths? Why say that the force that enlivens 
our bodies will be stored away in some blissful 
mansions in total inactivity, which is contrary to 
its nature, just because the conditions in the in- 
dividual mass of matter which supported it be- 
came unfavorable.'' Is the electricity which we 
saw active in a certain Leyden jar thus stored 
away somewhere without the possibility of ever 
becoming active again .'^ Why prattle of time.'' 
We are links in an endless chain, points in the 
circle of infinity. 

IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MAN 

The reproduction and development of man is 
the highest form of the protoplasmic faculty of 
producing new individuals. Generally they differ 
only in detail from the millions of other forms of 
complex life. Passing over the simpler modes in 
the plant and animal life, which may be called 
transitional, all complex individuals are repro- 
duced by the fusion of the male and the female ele- 
ments, which were produced by distinct organs. 
In some animals, both of these organs are in one 
individual, but in most cases they are produced 
by separate individuals. Why two elements are 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 57 

necessary we know not. Even in the simplest 
mode, conjugation, one cell seems to be the active 
and the other the passive one. In the Spirogyra, 
for example, the protoplasm in one of the repro- 
ducing cells in a thread contracts away from the 
cell wall through which the passage of the pro- 
toplasm of the other cell is afterwards affected, 
and the protoplasm of that other cell then passes 
through the opening formed in the cell walls which 
had previously united. The original threads seem 
to be alike, and yet there would appear to be some 
power of selection when the two threads come to 
lay side by side for the process to start. It may 
be that the life force is bi-polar, like electricity 
or magnetism ; in fact, because of this, we may call 
it bi-polar. If it were not so, a good deal of the 
beauty which we see in the world would be lacking, 
for this attribute of life is the cause of the ex- 
istence of those passions and the beauty which 
promote reproduction. In the lower types, the 
junction of the two elements is exposed to chance, 
which is reduced to a minimum in the higher types 
by manifold tricks and devices, by strong passions 
and desires, by attractiveness and beauty, which 
we see everywhere. This question is somewhat 
similar to the question as to why gravitation and 
molecular attraction are centripetal as well as cen- 
trifugal, making for points of concentration and 
attraction and consequently for the division and 
the manifestations of force in distinct individuals, 
when force could have kept active universally in 



58 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

the gaseous state or the nebulas. Why are the 
heavenly bodies? It is the centripetal nature of 
force that individualizes matter and consequently 
force also, which must have matter to subsist in. 
To say that matter itself, because of its inertia, 
tends towards a common center is a contradiction 
of terms ; for that is giving it an attribute of force, 
motion, and in our present state of knowledge we 
must have motion and inertia. If there were no 
individuals, there would be no variety, no beauty, 
no growth, but only homogeneity and monotony. 
The universe would then be as if it were not. This 
condition is rather aptly described in the first 
three verses of the first chapter of Genesis, disre- 
garding the many incongruities and contradictions 
they contain : 

" In the beginning God created the heaven and 
the earth. 

" And the earth was without form, void, and 
darkness was upon the deep. And the spirit of 
God moved upon the face of the waters. 

" And God said, Let there be light. And there 
was light." 

" God divided the light from the darkness," as 
otherwise there would have been only a blaze of 
light. Perhaps that is the answer. It is possible 
that if we had the correct translation of some of 
these words, or knew the ideas which the author 
wished to express, we might possibly see how near 
he was to what appears to us to be the truth with 
our much boasted advanced knowledge. We are 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 59 

compelled to bow in reverence before his genius. 
He certainly had a mighty vision, a revelation of 
the mysteries of nature, for he was far ahead of 
his days. If his words were correctly translated, 
he certainly saw for what his language did not 
even have sufficiently expressive words. By 
" day " and " night " he hardly meant the division 
of the period of Earth's revolution around its 
axis, although what follows would seem to indicate 
that. 

In the higher types of life, reproduction must 
of necessity be complicated and growth gradual ; 
and yet it must be from a simple beginning, be- 
cause of the intricacy of the structure, which must 
first be reduced to a single cell or unit and then 
expand again. It would be impossible for every 
cell in the human body, for example, to reproduce 
its kind, and for the new individual thus dupli- 
cated to separate from its parent. This simple 
cell, or rather the fused cell after the union of the 
two elements (for before the fusion the elements 
do not possess the protoplasmic attributes of as- 
similation and reproduction) contains potentially 
the whole future individual: its power and facul- 
ties, whatever they be. This fused cell then di- 
vides into two similar cells in the same way as 
any other simple cell, and this process of division 
into similar cells continues for a while, there be- 
ing no apparent difference between them. The 
distinction between this segmentation and the 
division of single cells is that the former co-here 



60 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

while the latter mostly separate. They assimilate 
food in the same way as a single cell. The life in 
the first cell and the subsequent cells is but the 
continuation of the life in the parent complex in- 
dividuals, without any loss of force on their part, 
similarly as it is in single cells, or in magnetism 
or electricity or any other form of individual mani- 
festation of force ; the units are but incidents, the 
vehicles. Then differentiation of functions begins. 
Some cells develop into the bones, some into the 
alimentary canal, some into nerves, some into the 
organs of respiration and excretion, some into the 
brain, some into the organs of the senses, some into 
the outside coverings. Now, then, what causes 
this differentiation? To say that in man it is 
due to the soul will not do, for the same thing 
happens in the animals ; in fact, in the first stages 
of development, where the origin of the embyro 
is unknown, we can hardly tell what will become of 
it, whether a philosopher or a pig. There is only 
one rational explanation, namely, that the differ- 
ent faculties of man and other inferior animals de- 
velop out of the primordial faculties of pro- 
toplasm, perpetuating life in a single stream. 
The protoplasm, or rather the life force, in its 
struggle for existence as any particular individ- 
ual, having acquired certain qualities through its 
ability to accommodate itself to surrounding cir- 
cumstances, transmits them either by the simple 
process of division or through the reproductive 
elements, which are but a transitional stage, to the 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 61 

offspring. If there is a partial reversion to a for- 
mer form it is because these qualities have not as 
yet become firmly established. It acquired a cer- 
tain way of manifesting itself, or a certain effi- 
ciency, which it transmits to the offspring sim- 
ilarly to electricity, which will induce a stronger 
charge or produce a stronger magnet according to 
its own strength. A good deal depends, of course, 
on the state of the matter through which this is 
done, just as certain substances will retain their 
qualities or acquire new ones, or acquire certain 
colors or shapes by retaining or forming certain 
chemical compounds. If iron takes up oxygen, 
it will invariably reflect the red rays ; it forms one 
kind of crystals when an element, and another after 
it is oxidized, and still another when it combines 
with sulphur. Certain chemicals are better con- 
ductors of heat or electricity than others. This 
is the cause of heredity, the development of 
various species, both in lifeless and in life forms. 
Heredity is the persistence of qualities acquired 
through changes. But we must always remember 
that life has the inherent ability to form its own 
individuals and chemical compounds. 

V. PROTOPLASMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

The primal protoplasmic attributes can be 
divided into three faculties : the power of assimila- 
tion, respiration, secretion, excretion may be 
called the nutritive faculty ; the powers of auto- 
matic motion and irritability or sensitiveness, the 



62 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

protective faculty ; and the power of reproduction 
and growth the reproductive faculty. In the mul- 
ticellular beings the nutritive faculty developed 
the complicated mechanism of digestion and dis- 
tribution of food into the organs of respiration 
and excretion. These different processes are but 
the collective powers of the cells pooled for a com- 
mon end. The protective faculty developed the 
mechanism through which volition controls the 
movements of the animal into the sensitive organs, 
the organs of memory and of reason. The repro- 
ductive faculty supervises the growth of the in- 
dividual through the different organs which it de- 
veloped. The emotions, passions, desires and af- 
fections are but the expressions of all these facul- 
ties and may be traced to them. 

That the system of acquisition, digestion and 
distribution of food grew out of the primal pro- 
toplasmic power cannot be very strenuously con- 
troverted, for it can be almost demonstrated; but 
it may be questioned that memory and reason are 
the outgrowth of the simple power of sensitiveness. 
It may appear a little far-fetched. But it is not 
so. It would not even be difficult to concede that 
the senses are but the collective expression of this 
simple attribute, but many might be inclined to 
stop there. The association of the cells was for a 
purpose, and the powers of the individuals had to 
be transferred to certain groups which specialized 
in these functions. This was done for the purpose 
of producing greater efficiency. If the cells had 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 63 

retained all their original powers, they might just 
as well have stayed in single blessedness, for they 
would have gained nothing by the association. 
Even in the larger unicellular animals we see cer- 
tain faculties located in those portions of the cell 
where they can be of most use. We can see this 
better in the way in which the nutritive organs 
evolved. The assimilation in the lowest types is 
done by absorption from the surrounding fluids ; 
where food is obtained in the solid state or as other 
animals, it is done by simply surrounding them 
and withdrawing the food out of them ; when thus 
done only the inner portion of the cell does the 
absorbing and becomes more efficient in this work 
while the exterior hardens for the purpose of bet- 
ter protection. The excretion is done by simply 
turning inside out, but even this is an adaptation 
of the original power to special circumstances, and 
is, in fact, a new process. Then we see that in the 
portion surrounding the intake, sensitiveness be- 
comes intensified to the detriment of the other 
parts. Higher up we see the animal forming two 
openings, one for the purpose of intake and the 
other for expulsion of refuse. Around the intake 
the sensibilities centered and developed into all 
the organs. All the organs of sensation, except- 
ing touch, are near the mouth ; that is four-fifths 
of the sensitive faculty. This can be followed step 
by step until we reach the highly developed system 
of the animals. That is a far cry from simple 
absorption of food only when in an assimilable 



64 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

form ; yet the difference is not greater than in the 
supposition that the simple sensitiveness of the 
single cell developed into the reason of man. The 
object of our having reason is the same as that 
for having our digestive apparatus. Our high- 
est flights of reasoning have but this one single 
end in view, — the protection of the individual. 
We learn the laws of nature in order that we may 
be better able to protect our lives. Why should 
not this sensitiveness have developed the organs 
of reasoning.'^ We can readily accept the state- 
ment that the volition of man is but the aggregate 
expression of the simple power of locomotion of 
the single cells. The cell can move where it 
pleases and so can man. But volition is not less 
a spiritual act than is reasoning. But we still 
hesitate to account in this way for consciousness, 
memory and the intellect. Consciousness cannot 
be reduced to the terms of motion and inertia. 

Unless the cell can perceive the impression made 
upon it by external contact, sensitiveness would be 
of no value ; in fact, there would be no such thing. 
The perception of the impressions is the very es- 
sence of sensitiveness, and consciousness is only 
a descriptive term of the state of perceptiveness. 
This state, together with the memory, constitute 
the ego, that is, man's identity. It is a question 
whether man would be conscious of his existence 
if all his organs of perception were either destroyed 
or did not develop. We do not know to what ex- 
tent other animals, no matter how developed or 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 65 

how simple, have consciousness. We know that 
other men have it only through their information 
to us. We do not know and cannot know to what 
extent the single cell is conscious. We can safely 
say, however, that our consciousness is but the 
aggregate consciousness of all the cells composing 
our bodies. We know of the sensitiveness of pro- 
toplasm from observing its actions and movements 
from the effects that contact will produce in those 
movements. Thus, for example, a cell-being under 
the microscope will move in a certain direction un- 
til it comes in contact with some hard object in the 
field, when it will either reverse itself or move 
around it, plainly showing that the cell perceived 
or became conscious of the obstruction. From ob- 
serving such movements we cannot tell how the cell 
feels about it, how it knows of this contact, but 
we conclude that it must be somewhat the same 
way as we do when touching something. No mat- 
ter how many cells we are observing in the field of 
a microscope, they all seem to have this power of 
perception, but being small, their single capacity 
as compared with the united capacities of a great 
many cells would naturally be small, although suffi- 
cient for the needs of the single cells. Now, in 
ourselves this capacity of perception, possessed 
by all the cells that compose our bodies, operates 
through specific organs and as one act, and that 
is our consciousness. Thus, instead of every cell 
along the whole length of the arm feeling, or per- 
ceiving, or being conscious of, the contact of the 



66 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

shirt sleeve separately, this external impression 
is perceived by the man as one perception. The 
other senses are but variations of the faculty of 
perception adapted to the various needs. From 
the use that we make of this consciousness, and 
from the use that the single cells apparently make 
of it, we conclude that it is a protective attribute 
of the protoplasm, or the life form of force mani- 
festation ; that is, the force, manifesting itself as 
life, to keep active, has the power of perceiving or 
knowing other force activities in order to avoid 
such as would counteract or neutralize it. By 
way of comparison we might say that it is some- 
what similar to the resiliency of lifeless matter, 
that the molecular force in the external object in- 
duces a change in the molecular force in the cell, 
which change the cell perceives.^ 

1 There are, however, some sensations which the individual 
cells still seem to perceive, or become conscious of, sepa- 
rately. Extreme fatigue and weariness is a general sen- 
sation and apparently every cell is individually conscious 
of it. Drowsiness is another such feeling. Every one can 
notice that when very sleepy a peculiar feeling is experi- 
enced throughout the entire body, and if suddenly aroused, 
a shock is felt in every part of the body, which must be 
considered different from the perception of outside pres- 
sure or of light. When thus suddenly awakened to full 
consciousness, it would seem that the individual cells act 
singly at first, and that only upon full awakening is their 
individual consciousness merged in that of the complex 
individual, and surrendered by them to the common or- 
gans. The feeling of hunger in the region of the stomach 
is but the localized sensation of all the cells of their want 
of food. These might be called the consciousness of the 
nutritive faculty. The reproductive faculty would seem to 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 67 

After the cells pooled their sensitiveness and de- 
veloped specific organs through which this sensi- 
tiveness acts, and in order that they be better 
able to protect themselves, memory became only a 
new expedient which the innate power of life to 
accommodate itself to circumstances developed. 
What would be the use of perceiving outside im- 
pressions for the purpose of acquiring protective 
experiences unless they could be retained for future 
use? And here again we are against the same dif- 
ficulty ; if men were the only beings possessing 
memory we could call it a supernatural attribute 
of the human soul. But we know that all animals 
have memory. Where do they get it.? The in- 
tellect developed in a similar manner. Its acts" 
are more complicated, consisting of perception, of 
retention of impression and of the comparison of 
different impressions received either simultaneously 
or at different intervals and retained by the mem- 
or}^, and the drawing conclusions for the purpose 
of acquiring protective experience for the preser- 
vation of life. What these faculties really are, 
or how they operate, we do not know, nor can 
know any better than we know why or how heat 
expands substances, or how electricity affects the 
substances which conduct it. The power of re- 
have a similar sense of individual cell perception; amorous 
contact, for example, and reproductive functioning are 
felt throughout the entire body. These are factors which 
must also be considered when treating of consciousness in 
general, for even if all the senses ceased functioning, these 
might nevertheless keep alive the consciousness of the ego. 



68 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

membering impressions is an attribute of the life 
force, in the same way as the power of expanding 
matter is an attribute of heat. The scientists tell 
us that the expansion by heat consists in the wi- 
dening of the atomic interspaces, but that is only a 
guess, because they only guess that there is such 
a thing as an atom ; and already there are others 
who are advancing the new electron theory, which 
is another guess. And so we will keep on guess- 
ing and supposing about these things. Are we 
progressing .P Maybe; but look at the fun we are 
having. 

The animal instincts, passions and desires are 
also but the collective expressions of the primordial 
attributes of protoplasm ; they are necessary for 
the carrying out of the grand purpose of life, its 
preservation in an active form. Fear, anger and 
hatred are emotions which, we can conclude, the 
single cell feels when it perceives some danger in 
the contact with some foreign substance. These 
passions cause it to arrest its movement, or to 
change its direction, or to draw away from it, or, 
apparently, to attack it. These passions or in- 
stincts teach the higher animals their cunning, 
they are the causes of their ferocity in defending 
themselves or when procuring their prey, and they 
keep the animal always on the alert for possible 
danger, making them cautious and suspicious. 
We can see that all animals acquire a certain 
amount of knowledge with age ; they are more ex- 
perienced ; if that be so, then they surely reason 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 69 

to a certain extent. The desire to hoard food and 
the greed for the possession of necessary things is 
traceable to the protoplasmic attribute of secre- 
tion. The single cells store up within their bodies 
the food which they do not need for their imme- 
diate nutrition in the form of starches, oils and 
sugars, and thus provide for their future necessi- 
ties. We see this in the squirrel, for example, 
hoarding up nuts for the winter; in the bee, work- 
ing all summer to have a plentiful supply of honey 
when it cannot be procured in the fields ; and in 
thousands of other animals. Some animals store 
their winter supply the same way as the cell, in 
the form of fat, on which they live during the pe- 
riod of their hibernation. All these acts have the 
same purpose in view. The reproductive faculty 
is the source of many sentiments and emotions 
which make for the beauty of the world. The at- 
traction of the sexes for each other, the pugnacity 
and bravery of the males, the coquettishness and 
the self-denial of the females, the bright plumage 
of the birds and the dazzling beauty of the flow- 
ers, are all but the outgrowth of the power of the 
single cell to multiply, the different means of pro- 
moting reproduction. But the passions are not 
only useful in the preservation of life, they are 
also destructive in their tendencies, especially in 
regard to universal life; they help to preserve the 
individual active, but in that they often destroy 
others. To minimize their destructive tendencies 
the social instinct was evolved, not only in man 



70 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

but in some of the lower animals also. Its purpose 
is to collect individuals into groups so that by co- 
operation they may lessen the necessity for exer- 
cising these destructive passions. In fear of its 
own destruction an animal, especially when living 
alone, will destroy other life even unnecessarily : 
when living in a community this fear is lessened, 
dependence being placed upon united effort. Be- 
sides, a single animal is more exposed to attack 
than a large group. By united efforts many ani- 
mals are better able to provide against future want 
than when living alone, and thus greed is subdued. 
And by the way, in the manner in which labor 
is specialized in animal communities we see an 
illustration of the concentration and specialization 
of the faculties by the cells in a complex indi- 
vidual. And some of us are inclined to deny them 
the blessings of intelligence in any form ! 

So that if we take volition, consciousness, in- 
tellect and the various emotions, we have a soul 
of the highest order, and all developed out of the 
simple primordial powers of the single cell. And 
we see similar results from the accumulation of 
other forces. A single dry cell produces a tiny 
spark, but several millions of them on one circuit 
would produce quite a flash. One ray of heat 
would hardly be perceivable, but when a few mil- 
lions of them are reflected or refracted upon a 
single point, the heat will be high. The same can 
be done with light. One single cell shows its 
irritability or sensitiveness by the arrest of its 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 71 

original movement; is it unreasonable to suppose 
that when several millions of them are working to- 
gether in man they show it in reasoning? If it is 
the disposition of one cell to exert all its powers 
to preserve its existence, in fact that is the reason 
why it has them, why can we not say that the 
various emotions, passions, instincts and desires 
which we notice in the highly organized animals, 
man included, are but the aggregate expression of 
the same disposition of the millions of cells com- 
posing them. But it may be objected that in 
plants, which are composed of very many cells, 
we do not see the senses developed, that is, if the 
senses are but the aggregate cell sensitiveness. 
The individuals in a plant are really the growing 
points, each one forming a different individual, so 
that the number of them that are really united is 
comparatively small. Besides, in plants the nutri- 
tive faculties alone are pooled ; the reproductive 
faculty acts separately through the growing points 
and buds. And it is no refutation of this supposi- 
tion to say that if this were true, then the larger 
the number of cells the greater should be their 
sensitive efficiency, for the reason that this expres- 
sion depends upon the efficiency of the organs 
through which it must act. We know this from the 
study of the brains of different animals ; the cells 
do not feel individually but collectively through 
their organs, and even with the material forces 
efficiency depends upon the surrounding conditions 
and the state of the matter. 



72 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

VI. THE UNIVERSE 

The development of life was, and for that mat- 
ter is, from the universal form to a variety of par- 
ticulars, from the simple to the complex. The uni- 
versal form, however, remained the same ; it is still 
represented by the cell. From what we know of 
the universe, its present form seems to have been 
acquired by the same process. There is every rea- 
son to believe that the nebular hypothesis is near 
to the truth. According to this theory, the mat- 
ter and the force which now compose the heavenly 
bodies at one time existed in a formless, homo- 
geneous, luminous mass: that is, matter and force 
existed in the universal form. Astronomers tell 
us that even to-day there seem to be vast spaces 
filled with such form of force and matter. Why 
there still are such nebulae they cannot tell. The 
spectroscope has demonstrated that matter and 
force manifest themselves in the same way every- 
where ; this manifestation everywhere is motion 
overcoming inertia in manner and form as we know 
it on earth. In the formation of the heavenly 
spheres we see the same tendency to individuation, 
to concentrating or particular form of manifesta- 
tion, as we see in the smallest bacteria. The forces 
that shape them into individuals are similar to 
those that shape the small individuals with which 
we come into contact and are convertible into the 
same terms. We can safely compare the solar sys- 
tem to a molecule. This process of individuation 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 73 

which formed the heavenly bodies was continued 
in the smaller individual manifestations that ex- 
isted on them. So that the process seems to be 
the same from the largest star to the smallest mole- 
cule composing a cell. Concentration naturally 
brought on diffusion and loss of energy, and finally 
life appeared on the earth as the most efficient 
form to preserve force active on the earth. The 
greater the loss by radiation the greater was the 
necessity for a highly efficient form. As one form 
became inefficient for the time, another form ap- 
peared, or rather another, a more efficient form, 
was evolved by the innate attribute of force to ac- 
commodate itself to circumstances, just as we see 
in living beings whose efficiency is growing every 
day. If there were no life on the earth, and there 
is no reason to deny that there is something sim- 
ilar to the life force on the other heavenly bodies, 
its surface would consist to-day of chemical com- 
pounds of the inactive kind, by reason of the loss 
of active force by radiation in the form of heat. 
This attribute of life, of being able to accommodate 
itself to the surrounding circumstances, — and 
when dealing with the entire universe we can say 
that it is the attribute of force in general, — can 
be safely assigned as the cause of the formation 
of species. Originally individual life was in the 
universal form ; if in the development of the in- 
dividual it distributes the functions to cells having 
the same original attributes, is it unreasonable 
to suppose that it acted similarly in the develop- 



74< THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

ment of life in general? We see every day the 
same attribute devising new means of repairing 
damages which endanger the life of an individual, 
although it is not supposed to have any intelli- 
gence. Would it, then, be unreasonable to sup- 
pose that the heavenly bodies possessing all the 
latent varieties of forms are less efficient than a 
blade of grass? When we study the growth of an 
animal from its embryo to a fully developed adult 
we see the same process. Cells begin to assume 
shapes and perform functions which their parents, 
from whom they separated by division, did not pos- 
sess, and they all originally sprang from one cell. 
We can safely say that the world, so far as we 
know it to-day, has grown and developed like any 
other complex individual, from the simple and uni- 
versal to the varied and complex, from the nebu- 
lar stage to reasoning human beings. At first it 
was a formless, luminous mass of gas ; then came 
the incandescent, fluent state in the different plan- 
ets ; then came water on the earth, — we do not 
know the history of the other heavenly bodies after 
that, — and in the water there appeared life in the 
universal form ; then came complex life, and this 
ever grew in efficiency until finally reasoning man 
appeared, who is most efficient because he can 
know the laws that govern his life. With the evo- 
lution of man growth did not stop ; it still con- 
tinued by developing the social instinct and its 
necessary consequence, the moral sense, which 
from crude conceptions of the submission to a su- 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 75 

perior authority grew into the sense of personal 
responsibility and coordination of the individual 
activities to the common welfare. The end is not 
yet in sight. What then? Dissolution of the in- 
dividual and a new cycle .f* Man as an individual 
starts his life's course as one cell, which grows and 
developes into an adult in the fullest enjoyment 
of the original protoplasmic faculties ; then he de- 
clines and dissolves again into the general. 
Everything is in infinity both as to time and space. 
We see force as light and heat radiating into space 
from centers, but this force is not lost in infinity. 
The centers are but individual manifestations of 
the universal force ; their existence or dissolution 
neither brings into being nor annihilates either 
force or matter. Individuals in whatever form, 
who are but incidents, are coming into being and 
dying. Since none of the force thus concentrated 
or released is lost in infinity, the time will come 
when there will be uniformity again, with which the 
known portion of the world started, according to 
the nebular hypothesis. Scientists, to be consist- 
ent, must admit that under their theory the uni- 
verse is tending towards the uniform distribution 
of energy by radiation ; but uniformity and in- 
dividuality are inconsistent terms, so that it will 
not be possible to have the force distributed uni- 
formly through infinity and also have heavenly 
bodies, for they would be concentrating at least a 
portion of force. If all the force becomes uni- 
form, matter will of necessity be also uniformly 



76 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

distributed and both will, therefore, reach the 
same state from which the evolution of the heavenly 
bodies started. The question then arises : will it 
remain in a state similar to the one which it has 
once discarded? Or will it start on a new cycle of 
evolution? During the present cycle neither 
force nor matter is losing any of its qualities ; con- 
sequently it would not be unreasonable to assume 
that the same force and the same matter will re- 
peat the same process. We see a close analogy 
between the birth and development of man and 
those of the universe ; would it be unreasonable to 
assume that the universe will follow a similar course 
in the future? Furthermore, would it be unrea- 
sonable to say that the evolution of life on the 
earth is but a continuation of the evolution of the 
heavenly bodies and that these are but one process ? 

VII. GOD 

If the world is self-developed, where does " God " 
come in? The spiritist or dogmatist says: He 
is outside of this world and has laid down a code 
of laws for its government, just as absolute mon- 
archs prescribe laws for their subjects. The 
scientist says : This is all the work of nature. 
Neither goes any further: the former does not at- 
tempt to say what " God " is, except that He is a 
spirit, which is no answer; the latter does not care 
to bother himself about trying to form a theory 
as to what " nature " might be. Let us go back 
to the human body, which we know about the best. 



CYCLES AND ANALOGIES 77 

It is composed of millions of cells, each one hav- 
ing its individual existence and its properties 
working together in harmony towards one com- 
mon aim. There is no outside power controlling 
their association ; they all grew out of one cell and 
developed into a complicated organism through 
their innate faculty of being able to accommodate 
themselves to external conditions, for that is the 
reason they pooled their forces. Individually 
they are not conscious of their separate existences, 
nor do they individually know of the existence of 
their fellow cells. Every man is conscious only 
of one existence. The entire united individual, 
however, exhibits certain attributes which can be 
safely termed single attributes and not the sepa- 
rate attributes of individual cells. Man has an in- 
tellect which performs only single acts ; his voli- 
tion manifests itself only through single acts. 
Man is not conscious of any outside regulation of 
his acts, whether corporal or mental. Man is self- 
existent, at least for the term of his individual life. 
He began with the fecundated ovum, and this ovum 
was developed by evolution lasting countless ages 
from the universal form of life, the cell, to which 
we can almost demonstrably trace it. There life 
seems to stop. But that first cell was but a neces- 
sary form of force manifestation in order to main- 
tain force activity. This force during the millions 
of years through which we can follow its activities 
developed millions of forms of life, and yet it al- 
ways remained the same. It does similar work in 



78 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

man when developing the various organs of the 
human body, and does it through its innate pow- 
ers. This even the most zealous religionist at all 
acquainted with the demonstrated facts of science 
must admit. Taking into consideration, then, this 
one scheme working in the entire known universe, 
working similarly everywhere, in the formation of 
the heavenly spheres as well as in the evolution of 
a humble insect, would it be unreasonable to say 
that the term " God " stands for all the collective 
attributes of the universe, just as the term " man " 
stands for the collective attributes of all the cells 
which compose him? 

If we must have a picture, let us say that the 
solar system is a molecule (if we want an important 
location) in the brain cell of God. 



CHAPTER III 

DREAMLAND AND THE SPIRIT WORLD 

I. BELIEF IN HEAVEN AND HELL AN 
OBSTACLE TO PROGRESS 

The belief in individual immortality is one of the 
greatest stumbling blocks in the path of man's in- 
tellectual and moral progress. It is an obstacle 
which man has not been able to pass for centuries, 
although it is obviously not a satisfactory or a 
rational solution of the all-important question of 
what is his destiny. There are several reasons, 
both inherent and external, for its persistence. It 
is naturally very attractive and appeals very 
strongly to man's fancy. He is fascinated with 
the idea that after this life there is another, a 
perfect one, according to his present standards, in 
which all the desires of this life will be satisfied. 
His imagination has dwelt on it for centuries, ever 
adding to and refining upon it, and this notwith- 
standing the fact that he has no proof for it, — 
that scientific investigations, if followed out to 
their logical conclusions, tend to disprove it. Its 
hold on man was strengthened by its intimate con- 
nection with two other beliefs which, for reasons 

of their own, have equally endeared themselves to 

79 



80 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

him and have taken just as deep a root in his mind : 
these are the belief in an extraneous God and the 
belief in future rewards and punishments. Around 
these three beliefs revolves the entire system of our 
ethics : they are the groundwork of our morality, 
the wellsprings of our hopes and aspirations, the 
incentives to our ambitions and the guides of our 
pilgrimage on earth. This is sufficient to crush 
any one who attempts to argue against them, and 
he will receive but scant attention, being considered 
as the enemy of everything that is good in life and 
the social order and the destroyer of all earthly 
consolations. 

This trinity of beliefs, as now developed, is in- 
separable. It marks an epoch in man's mental 
and moral growth and a step in his evolution ; so 
that it is vain to think that it will never be sup- 
planted by others. To hold differently would be 
to claim that we have reached perfection, an ab- 
surd proposition. 

"GOD" OUR "FATHER" 

Not knowing better, we like to think of God as 
a sublimated human being; we like to look upon 
Him as a Father and transfer to Him the affection, 
reverence and obedience we naturally experience to 
our earthly parents. The idea of an omnipotent 
personal God as our Father presents to our minds 
something palpable and concrete, something that 
overawes us, compels our admiration, inspires in 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 81 

us the feelings of affection and veneration, but 
which we understand just as much or as little as 
our earthly parentage. We are deluding our- 
selves that by making a father out of God we 
thereby solve the problem of our origin. But do 
we? If we did understand our descent from our 
natural parents, the fatherhood of a personal God 
would be a solution of this question ; but how much 
do we know of the beginning of our lives.? Next 
to nothing. Biology shows us certain manifesta- 
tions of the life principle, but its essence is still 
a profound mystery. This belief in a one per- 
sonal God as a Father is but substituting one mys- 
tery for another, or, rather, making two mysteries 
out of one. Such solutions of vexing questions 
are dangerous to human progress, because they lull 
the mind into security, paralyze its activities, with- 
out even satisfying its longing and thirst for 
knowledge. And after all, it is not even a concep- 
tion of the intellect: it is merely a fiction of the 
imagination. You can abstract all you wish, you 
can split hairs indefinitely, — the impressions re- 
ceived in your childhood will remain: the one per- 
sonal God will always remain an old man. You 
can give Him attributes inconsistent with such a 
picture : they will never erase it from your im- 
agination and memory. When you talk of 
omnipotence, you will always conceive Him as a 
master magician who by a movement of His hands 
can produce the universe; of omnipresence you 



83 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

have no conception, or at most you think that He 
is always behind your back ; but at all times He is 
but a most perfect old man. 

HEAVEN AND HELL 

The reasons for the obstinate persistence of the 
belief in future rewards and punishments are so 
obvious that they hardly need proofs. It is based 
on human selfishness and the expectation of grati- 
fying all earthly desires. Every one hopes to go 
to heaven and to see his enemies frying in hell. 
And strange to say, the belief in hell, which one 
would expect to be the most firm, was the first one 
to be shaken. No doubt it is because it is so re- 
pugnant to the others, and it has been worn 
threadbare. Immortal souls to be eternally 
damned, infinite love and mercy condemning these 
souls to eternal tortures are incompatible terms. 
To create a soul to be eternally damned seems rank 
injustice: it is an aspersion on the omnipotence 
and perfection of God; for why should He not 
create perfect beings.? There seems to be no rea- 
son for it. 

OBSTACLE TO INTELLECTUAL PROGRESS 

Being so dear to the human heart, this trinity 
of beliefs has been a serious obstacle to man's in- 
tellectual progress. Why has the theory of evolu- 
tion so many and bitter enemies.'' Is it because it 
is unreasonable or groundless.'' No; the reason 
is that it tends to overthrow this trinity. Why 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 83 

do biologists stop at the very threshold of solving, 
at least partially, the mystery of life? Is it be- 
cause the portals are locked to them? No; be- 
cause by entering them they would not find an im- 
mortal individual soul there, which, in turn, would 
shake the other members of this trinity and over- 
throw the entire structure built upon it. Why 
do they stop there and say : we study only the ma- 
terial phenomena of life, we have nothing to do 
with the soul ; that is for the psychologists ? Why 
do they separate the soul from the living body, 
when every discovery points to their intimate 
unity ; when they admit, in the same breath, that it 
is the soul, or some principle, if you are not satis- 
fied with the former term, that gives to matter its 
attributes of life? Because they are afraid to an- 
tagonize this universal and deep-rooted belief in 
individual immortality. They seek refuge behind 
the excuse that it is an unsolvable mystery, yet at 
the same time they talk glibly of electricity or 
chemical affinity as if they knew more about them. 
They are all but terms standing for collections of 
manifestations. 

DRAG ON MORAL PROGRESS 

These beliefs have been a great drag upon 
man's moral progress as well, because they pre- 
vented him from rising above the gross utilitarian 
motives. The hope of a heavenly reward, even 
though idealized, is nevertheless utilitarian, self- 
ishness being its underlying motive. Avoid do- 



84 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

ing evil because it will surely revenge itself upon 
you, ye shall not lose your reward, are the cur- 
rent accepted maxims. The principle that vir- 
tue is its own reward has taken but a weak hold on 
man under this system of ethics. Belief in the 
eternal punishment of our enemies has somewhat 
subdued our thirst for vengeance and our hatred ; 
it has decreased violence, but it is only persuasive 
and tends only to postpone the gratification of 
these desires to after-life. But at that we highly 
admire unselfish self-sacrifice and consider it the 
height of perfection, which is proof positive that 
it is our real ideal. The life of Jesus stands out 
of the pages of history and grips our very souls 
not so much on account of his exalted ideals, his 
wise teachings, as on account of his steadfastness 
to his principles, his sincerity and courage, but 
mainly on account of his readiness to give up life 
for others. He has millions of followers because 
they believe him to be the " Lamb of God, who 
taketh away the sins of the world " by sacrificing 
his life for others. 

We are wont to boast of our great progress ; and 
no doubt we did make rapid strides along some 
lines, mostly material and intellectual, but morally 
we have been at a standstill for many centuries, 
and we shall remain so until we change our stand- 
point, until we change our motives. We may have 
refined upon the application of our underlying 
principles of ethics by substituting spiritual for 
material rewards ; but what is the difference 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 85 

whether we do good in hopes of temporal gain, be- 
cause honesty is the best policy, or to win a crown 
in heaven? The motive in both cases is a selfish 
one. We hear it frequently asked whether Chris- 
tianity is a failure. That is a sign that we feel 
things are not as they ought to be, — which is a, 
good sign. Why is it unsatisfactory? Because 
its actuating motive is selfishness, its standard self- 
love, and therefore it failed in its ultimate pur- 
pose. It resolves itself into a conflict between 
the hope of an indefinite, spiritual, future gain 
and the prospects of present material and sub- 
stantial profit. Shall a bad tree bring forth good 
fruit? Self-love will remain self-love, and the 
prospect of a future reward is easily drowned by 
the prospect of present advantages. And this 
the more surely as this heavenly reward is repre- 
sented as hard to gain and easily lost. Thus self- 
ishness is prescribed as a cure for selfishness. 
We are asked to forego present tangible advan- 
tages for future, ideal advantages. Vain appeal ! 

II. ORIGIN OF BELIEF IN THE SPIRITS 

These three beliefs really are a part of one 
system, and can be termed as but one belief, 
namely, the belief in the spirit world. 

Now, the spirits, like the poor, we always have 
had with us. They run the gamut from the 
fairies and gnomes of the nursery tales through 
the spirits of the woods, the rivers and the stars 
of the ancient and of the present day savages, 



86 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

through the gods and demigods of Greek and 
Roman mythologies, through the devils and the 
evil spirits of hell, through the saints, angels, 
archangels, powers, thrones, and so on, of heaven 
to the very throne of the one personal " God." 
They are good, bad and indifferent. They are 
the delight of the child, the terror of the savage, 
the object of veneration of the ascetic and the 
subject of the speculation of the philosopher. 
Barbarians have offered bloody sacrifices to them, 
poets have sung their sweetest songs about them, 
painters have lavished upon them all the wealth of 
their fertile imaginations, sculptors have expended 
on them the cunning of their dexterous hands, and 
thinkers have exhausted upon them the ingenuity 
of their minds. Man has believed in them since 
the first days his reason dawned upon him and 
even to-day some of the greatest intellects believe 
in their existence in some form. They have been 
represented as crude idols, as beautiful human be- 
ings, and as intangible substances that can be con- 
ceived only after a great deal of metaphysical 
abstraction. Even material and exact science 
and mathematics have not been altogether free 
from their influence, and an explanation of their 
existence is sought in the fourth dimension. They 
had a tremendous influence on shaping human de- 
velopment and played an important part in human 
history. 

What is the foundation of this persistent be- 
lief for which absolutely no proof exists .f* What 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 87 

is the probable origin of this rather fantastic be- 
lief? This entire structure of the spirit world 
seems to rest upon nothing more substantial than 
dreams. As orthodox thinkers and theologians 
use the universality and the persistence of this be- 
lief to prove its verity and, as it is intimately con- 
nected with the belief in the one personal God, 
the solution of the question is more important 
than it would at first appear. They argue that 
it is impossible that all mankind could err and 
that there must be some objective reason for this 
belief. The trouble with this argument is that it 
starts with the wrong premise, namely, that many 
errors may make one truth, that a whole lot of 
nothing may make one something. If you guess 
often enough, you will necessarily guess the truth. 
That man always had dreams we can safely as- 
sume. From what little we know of animal 
psychology, we can assume that even animals have 
dreams. From history we know that in the past 
dreams were taken very seriously and were given 
a supernatural trend. It is stated that some of 
the most awful mysteries of revealed religion were 
explained in dreams and that the destinies of na- 
tions were guided through them. Joseph had the 
mystery of the incarnation of Christ explained in 
a dream, and Jacob's ladder was the mainspring 
of his ambition. And some of these dreams sat- 
isfy our present thinkers too ! If that be so, what 
explanation could an ignorant savage find for his 
experiences, good and bad, in dreamland .f* 



88 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

Take an American Indian, for example, roving 
over the plains some five hundred years ago. At 
the close of the day he retires to his tepee and lies 
down to sleep. Without knowing how it hap- 
pens, he meets his dead father, whose body, he 
knows, he placed long ago among the other dead 
of his tribe along a river bank far away ; and they 
go hunting. He comes upon a beautiful deer and 
gives chase, which leads him over unknown lands ; 
he converses with his father; he performs almost 
impossible feats of strength and speed and finally 
brings down the deer. Suddenly the entire scene 
vanishes and he again finds himself in his tepee, 
where he lay down, but no signs of his hunting 
trophy, and he finds that it is another day. He 
relates his experience to his squaw, but she tells 
him that because their child had been ill nearly all 
night she did not sleep much, and that she saw 
him lying all the time in the same place as one 
dead, and that his father was not near him, of 
course. Here, then, is a mystery which his crude 
mind cannot solve in any other way than by sup- 
posing that there is another world, similar to this 
one, in which reside the persons of those who died. 
Did he not converse with his dead father.'' Did 
they not hunt the deer together .? What other 
explanation could be found by this untutored 
savage? It requires a strong and developed in- 
tellect to comprehend that the dream existences 
have no objective realities, and especially because 
one finds himself among them. It is difficult to 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 89 

draw the line between waking and dreaming con- 
sciousness. Can we wonder that an ignorant 
savage cannot distinguish between them? And 
then, when wandering through the forests at night, 
he heard mysterious sounds and saw queer forms 
and shapes ; can we, therefore, wonder that he as- 
sociated them with the spirits of his dreams? 

The belief, once it took root, could not be 
eradicated completely to this day. In his savage 
state, man was not given to investigation and to 
analysis ; the simplest and the most plausible ex- 
planation suited him, and the existence of spirits 
was the simplest and most natural explanation of 
his dreams and of his own destination after death. 
With advancing knowledge, man dissociated his 
dreams from his belief in the spirits and began to 
refine on them. This process of refining upon the 
spirits of the dreamland is plainly written on the 
pages of history. To the question, what orig- 
inated the belief in the existence of the spirits, we 
can find no other plausible explanation except 
this, that it had its beginning in dreams. Curios- 
ity and the desire to find an explanation for every 
experience is the main attribute of the human 
mind. When contemplating the remains of a man, 
the question, what became of that portion of the 
man that gave it life, naturally presents itself, 
even to the savage. His experiences in dream- 
land suggested to him a concrete answer. They 
suggested to him the existence of another world, 
in which the spirits of the dead could be found. 



90 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

Death was but a transition from this world into 
that other world ; there went out of the body some- 
thing that assumed in that other world a similar 
shape. The further back in history we go the 
more grossly material man was, and his spirits 
were more like material beings. His imagination 
formed pictures of only material beings, and when 
it performed its functions in semi-conscious stages, 
in dreams, independent of the senses, it repro- 
duced to his savage imagination beings which in 
his fully conscious stages he knew to be non- 
existent. But his crude mind was not given to 
analyzing itself, and the result was the mixture 
of the two stages and a belief in the existence of 
the dreamland beings. It was easy to construct 
another world in which the spirits of his departed 
friends had their being, who could not be perT 
ceived in the ordinary way, who made no impres- 
sion upon his senses, who had different attributes 
and who could do things which he himself could 
not perform. To the savage, then, man existed 
in the body in this world, and after death only 
in the spirit in the other world, but that spirit 
possessed a similar shape because he has so mani- 
fested himself in dreams. 

III. INDIVIDUAL IMMORTALITY 

From the behef in the spirits to the belief in 
individual immortality is but a short step ; in fact, 
the latter is but a corollary of the former. If the 
spirit of one man lives, there is no reason why the 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 91 

spirits of all do not live. That there is a strong 
desire in man for individual immortality there is 
no doubt ; we resist the thought that death ends 
all : but the existence of the desire is no proof of 
the existence of the object desired. If we turn 
the searchlight of our present knowledge on this 
belief and disregard our deep-rooted belief in the 
existence of the spirits, what is there left of in- 
dividual immortality? If the soul is a substance 
that can exist with its faculty of remembering 
intact, without the body, how does it do so after 
death? What becomes of it after death? The 
orthodox, hoping for the eternal joys of heaven, — 
what does he really want? To remember his pres- 
ent life, his sorrows and tribulations ; otherwise 
the consolations of his religion would be but scant 
compensation for his present sufferings. Heaven 
would not serve as an incentive to right living; 
nor would the terrors of hell be a restraint upon 
his evil tendencies. 

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

To individual immortality the persistence of 
memory after death is indispensable ; it is neces- 
sary that man remember in after-life who he was 
in this world. The scholastic philosophers hold 
that the body is the principle of individuation; 
and they are against a stone wall when asked to 
explain how it is possible, if that be so, that man's 
soul retains its individuality after death. But in 
reality there is another means whereby man knows 



92 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

that he is a separate individual, or his identity, 
which makes him conscious of his separate ex- 
istence, namely, his memory. Bury the body and 
destroy the memory, and what is left of the in- 
dividual? What would there be to keep separate 
the life-giving principle or force which vitalized 
the body and made it perform its function ac- 
cording to a well defined plan? Science has dem- 
onstrated beyond a doubt that man's memory de- 
pends absolutely upon the proper working of cer- 
tain material organs, certain portions of the 
brain. The knowledge of the ego is but the ac- 
cumulated experiences of the man stored up in his 
memory. Man is conscious of his existence be- 
cause of the perception of the impressions received 
by the sensitive organs, but if he lacked memory 
he would not know his identity, for there would 
be nothing to connect the perceptive experiences 
of one moment with those of another moment. 
Furthermore, we know that loss of memory is fol- 
lowed by loss of identity, and that injury to a cer- 
tain portion of the brain will produce loss of mem- 
ory. Our identity begins with the time we can 
remember. 

Sleep is induced when the activities of the sensi- 
tive organs are suspended, and consciousness of 
existence is also thereby suspended. During the 
dreamless portion of sleep, because of this suspen- 
sion, man is the same as if he were dead. Con- 
sciousness returns when these organs resume their 
functions, and partial consciousness, when mem- 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 93 

ory alone begins to functionate and produces 
dreams. What would happen to a man if he died 
in his sleep? How would he regain the conscious- 
ness of his existence, which depends upon the op- 
eration of his material organs of perception, and 
how would he regain his identity, which depends 
upon his memory, which cannot act without the 
material organs? And he would necessarily have 
to regain his memory, for how would he know who 
he was in this life? A violent blow on the head 
will produce unconsciousness because it disturbs' 
the organs of perception and memory, and con- 
sciousness returns when the effects of the blow 
wear off and the organs regain their normal con- 
dition. Anaesthetics produce unconsciousness be- 
cause of their action upon the nerve centers, and 
consciousness returns when their effects wear off. 
How could a man regain his identity if, while un- 
conscious whether from a blow or from an anaes- 
thetic, his organs of memory were surgically re- 
moved? You say he would die: granted, but that 
does not answer the question, for the spirit does 
not take the brain along with it into the next 
world. On the other hand, life is possible without 
consciousness and memory, all depending upon 
what portion of the brain is injured or removed. 

IV. GENERAL IMMORTALITY 

We have every reason to believe that nothing 
existing can be annihilated, and that, therefore, 
when a man dies his component parts but change 



94 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

form, — that both the body and the life-giving 
principle continue to exist in some other form, 
and to that extent we can claim immortality for 
our spirit, whatever that be. But there is a grave 
doubt whether the collection of recollections which 
constitute man's individuality and identity per- 
sist after the destruction of the material organs 
which supported them. There certainly is no way 
of proving it, and the reasoning against such per- 
sistence is very strong. The believers in it flatly 
assert that there is individual immortality, but 
after boiling down all their theories and specula- 
tions to hard facts there remains nothing more 
substantial than dreams and simple, unquestion- 
ing faith in the words of persons who believed in 
spirits and dreams. 

If there is not individual immortality, what be- 
comes of man after his death? This question 
has been asked by man ever since he began to 
think, — although very vital, so far it has not been 
answered satisfactorily. 

There is no doubt that man consists of two 
principles : his atomic body and a vivifying prin- 
ciple which coordinates these atoms to one com- 
mon end, even to the knowledge of the existence 
of the entire organism. Science has proven that 
these component parts separate when the condi- 
tions are unfavorable for their joint existence; 
the atomic body then behaves as any other lifeless 
substance, governed solely by the chemical laws 
as if it never had sustained the life principle. Of 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 95 

course, the composing atoms or molecules, what- 
ever they be, are as enduring as the universe itself, 
whatever that is. Death is not annihilation for 
them, only a change of form, although the organ- 
ized being of which they were the component parts 
has ceased to exist as a whole. What becomes of 
the life principle .f* Is that destroyed or annihi- 
lated.'' But first, what is this life principle .^^ 

V. THE LIFE PRINCIPLE 

If we noticed its manifestation only in human 
beings there would not be so much objection to 
the assumption of orthodox theologians that it 
persists in existing after death as an individual, 
although in another form. But we see its mani- 
festations in a multitude of forms and in beings 
to whom the blessings of immortality are denied, 
so that to be consistent we must admit that either 
all live beings are immortal or none. Does man 
grow and vegetate? So do the plants. Does man 
feel, see, hear, taste and smell .f* So do the ani- 
mals, some even to a greater degree than man. 
Does man experience certain feelings and senti- 
ments of love, hatred, joy, anger, gratitude.'' So 
do the animals. Is man conscious of his ex- 
istence .? We have no reason to suppose that the 
animals are not ; in fact, everything points to the 
supposition that they are. Has man memory .f* 
So have the animals. Does man reason? The 
animals seem to do the same, the difference being 
mainly in degree. What, then, does man possess 



96 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

that other living beings do not? He possesses the 
same faculties as the aninnals, some more intense, 
others weaker. His greater powers of reasoning 
make him a responsible and, therefore, a moral 
being ; but that alone will not preserve his identity 
after his death, because reason is not the faculty 
which maintains man's identity in this life. To 
attribute all these similar functions or acts of the 
animals to instinct does not solve the difficulty 
or answer the argument, for it but raises another 
question, namely, what is instinct .f* It is neither 
physical nor chemical force nor anything material. 
It is but solving one mystery by proposing an- 
other. 

That the life principle is a specific and distinct 
form of force, different from the ordinary physical 
and chemical forces, there is no doubt. Biology 
proves this most emphatically. Its essence lies in 
its power to coordinate physical and chemical 
forces to one common aim. As long as it can ac- 
complish this, life exists ; when it becomes weak- 
ened, the other forces overcome it and the organ- 
ized being ceases to exist. We see life in its 
simplest form in the unicellular organisms, which 
essentially is not different in the most complex 
multi-cellular being, man, only in the manner of 
reproduction. Besides coordinating the physical 
and chemical functions, the life principle of com- 
plex beings also supervises the growth of the cells 
and directs their activities towards one common 
goal. While unicellular organisms maintain 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 97 

themselves by their individual exertions, the cells 
of an organized being unite their efforts to main- 
tain themselves by preserving the entire being. 
Synthetical chemistry and biology are straining all 
their powers to produce living organism in the 
laboratory by chemical processes, going on the 
theory that life is but a chemical reaction. There 
is every reason to believe that they are proceeding 
on a wrong assumption and that they will never 
succeed. Life and the chemical forces seem to be 
two opposing forces, and are constantly at war 
with each other. The chemical forces are trying 
to destroy the life force, while it is exerting itself 
to overcome them. The chemical forces do not 
possess the attributes of coordination, they act al- 
ways in the same way ; how, then, can they be made 
to restrain their activities without placing over 
them another force .^ Yet it would not be incon- 
sistent to admit that, starting with life in its most 
simple form, the cell, up to where it manifestly 
possesses the faculty of perception, it could be 
possibly explained by chemists ; but chemistry will 
not explain perception, still less, consciousness, 
reason and volition. How can chemistry explain, 
the faculty of coordinating cells in a complex or- 
ganism to work towards a common aim.'^ And in 
what way can it account for the power of differ- 
entiating the cells and for assigning to them cer- 
tain functions during the process of development .f* 
How will chemistry account for heredity, the in- 
herent attribute of the two elements to produce 



98 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

the same kind of a being as its parents ? How will 
chemistry account for heredity of character? 

VI. INDIVIDUALITY 
THE MATTER AND FORM THEORY 

To form a correct idea of the life principle, that 
is, the force or whatever it is which maintains the 
uniform chemical composition of the cells, pre- 
serves their characteristics through countless gen- 
erations and supervises the nutrition and repro- 
duction of individual cell organisms and which, 
besides these, coordinates the activities of the cells 
to a common purpose, it is most important to form 
first a definite conception of what constitutes an 
individual. In fact, that is the main question in 
the present inquiry, for there is no doubt of our 
immortality in some form, as nothing that is can 
be annihilated; but we do question seriously that 
we persist as individuals. According to the scho- 
lastic theory of matter and form — a highly ab- 
stract set of metaphysical terms — the soul is the 
form which is universal and general in all beings 
of the same species, and the body is the matter", 
as they call it, and is the individuating principle. 
We could well agree with this theory if it did not 
lead to absurdities when the belief in individual im- 
mortality of the soul is sought to be explained by 
it. It is the fundamental axiom of this theory 
that both matter and form must exist together ; 
one cannot exist without the other. Thus, if we 
talk of a wooden chair, we must have the wood. 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 99 

which is the matter, and it must be fashioned into 
a chair, that is, possess all the essentials of a 
chair, which constitute its form. It is easy to 
see that while the wood is in the shape of boards 
it is not a chair, and that the plans of a chair in 
the mind of a joiner do not make a chair either. 
When the joiner fashions the boards according to 
his plans, a chair is brought into being: break it 
up and it ceases to be a chair, although the wood 
is there. From this illustration two other prin- 
ciples can be deduced: that the form is universal 
and that it exists or subsists in all the essential 
parts of the matter. It makes no difference which 
particular chair we mean: all have the same at- 
tributes, all are made for the same purpose, all 
must have the same essential qualifications ; it is 
the wood, or the matter, which makes the indi- 
viduals. Every essential part of a chair is neces- 
sary to its makeup, whether it is the legs, the seat 
or back, if that kind of chair is meant. A piece 
of wood fashioned like the leg or the seat of a 
chair may be a chair leg or seat only when it is a 
part of a chair; it is not that either before it is 
put into one or after it is torn away from one. 

Now let us apply these principles to the human 
soul, bearing in mind that we must not disturb 
its individual immortality, which, resting on the 
authority of the miraculously revealed word of 
God, is presumed to be absolutely true. Accord- 
ing to this theory, the body is the matter and the 
principle of individuation, and the soul, which is 



100 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

universal, is the form. If that be so, how can the 
soul exist at all after death, and further, how can 
it exist as an individual? Orthodox theology an- 
swers : " After death, God supplies in some 
miraculous way — and everytliing is possible to 
God — the lack of the body, which is, of course, 
necessary under our theory to the individual ex- 
istence of a human soul, until the great day of 
resurrection, when the two will become united 
again." Simple and easy ! And that is supposed 
to be a rational method of looking at it, and a solu- 
tion of a vexed question. When your theories 
lead you to absurdities, hide behind miracles and 
revealed faith. Now let us take the other deduc- 
tion, namely, that the form is indivisible and sub- 
sists in its entirety in all parts of the individual, 
that is, that the entire human soul resides in every 
part of the human body, and see where it will lead 
us to in view of our present knowledge and scien- 
tifically conducted experiments. What becomes 
of the soul that subsisted in an amputated leg or 
siYm? No' plausible answer. Another mystery! 
But let us carry that a little further and consider 
a case of successful skin grafting. It is not neces- 
sary to analyze some of the more recent but not 
thorouglily successful experiments of transplant- 
ing whole organs. A loses a portion of skin on 
his face by scalding: B offers the necessary skin 
from his back. Now that skin, to be living, must 
have a soul, and is permeated with the entire soul 
of B. It is transferred to A's face, matter and 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 101 

form, body and soul. It takes root and keeps on 
growing as if it were on B's back. After this skin 
continues to live on A's face, whose soul has it? 
Mind you, even during the transplanting opera- 
tion it had to have one, for if the soul had left it, 
it would have died, and how could it have been re- 
vived ? If it becomes A's soul, then A has two — 
his former soul and B's, if it is B's ; then what was 
left to B ? We must not forget that both of them 
have individual existences, under this theory ; both 
are indivisible and both have hopes of future in- 
dividual immortality. Poor A has two souls to 
save, a doubly hard task, while B has none, and 
can live an absolutely free and irresponsible life; 
for why should he worry? He has no soul left. 
But what if A should lose both of them? There 
would likely be a lively fight between the two on 
the day of resurrection. If the soul is indivisible, 
where does the child get its soul? The parents do 
not lose theirs, for they continue to live. The 
orthodox theologians answer that it gets it by a 
special act of God. If that be so, then God is 
creating souls every day, and the Bible is wrong 
when it says that He is through with the creation 
and that He is now resting from His labors. Fur- 
thermore, He depends very much upon the will of 
man, who must first create favorable material con- 
ditions, that is, supply Him with bodies to find 
suitable subjects for His souls. Under these con- 
ditions God cannot be called omnipotent. But, 
although it may be premature just at this stage 



102 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

of the discussion, — following out this reasoning 
to its logical conclusions, — does it not appear that 
man is collaborating with God in the work of the 
universe, and is not his part of the work of great 
importance? 

But we have a still stronger refutation of the 
matter and form theory, and, for that matter, of 
the entire belief in individual immortality, in Dr. 
Carrell's successful preservation in life of animal 
organs after their separation from the rest of the 
body. At this early stage of these experiments 
even partial success is a strong argument, and 
there is no reason why these experiments will not 
be successful ; for do we not see it in plant life 
every day? We see tree grafting and the plant- 
ing of sprigs which assume a new individuality. 

SCIENTIFIC THEORY 

Now then, let us take the facts that biology has 
demonstrated and see whether we cannot construct 
a reasonable theory which, at least, will avoid 
these absurdities. We have the live cell to which 
all living things are reducible. We say that it is 
alive because it shows certain universal activities : 
it assimilates and it multiplies. But even assimi- 
lation is different from accretion in lifeless sub- 
stances. The growth of the cell is limited, while 
lifeless substances, conditions being favorable, 
grow indefinitely. Of course this limitation is 
really attributable to the power of multiplication. 
The peculiarity of cell multiplication is the per- 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 10[3 

petuation of characteristics, or heredity, of the 
parent cell. Crystallization is somewhat similar 
to cell multiplication, yet it is clearly distinguish- 
able, and the two processes cannot, under any cir- 
cumstances, be considered as similar or identical. 
Crystals will not separate of themselves into simi- 
lar crystals after a certain amount of amorphous 
matter has been added to them, although some will 
by the application of external force, by fissure, 
separate into smaller crystals of the same shape, 
but they will not do so invariably of themselves 
after the}' grow to a certain size. In other words, 
it is not an automatic process of multiplication 
of individuals. This principle determining the 
growth of the cell and forcing it, as it were, to 
separate must be considered as distinctive of the 
life force. On the other hand, it shows how little 
difference there is between the different forms of 
beings and how graduated the transition from 
amorphous matter to reasoning human beings. 
Besides, this difficulty vanishes when we come to 
the consideration of complex beings. Cells also 
show other peculiarities, such as the power of defi- 
nite locomotion, the production of secretions at 
indeterminate times, which indicates volition. 
These general attributes of cell life are universal, 
and show themselves in all forms of life, from 
the lowest to the highest. In that respect the brain 
cells of a philosopher differ in nothing from the 
amoeba. To this extent we can safely endorse the 
matter and form theory of the scholastics, but 



104 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

when they seek to explain by it the behef in indi- 
vidual immortality we must part company with 
them. We must right here also part company with 
the materialists, who seek to explain all life phe- 
nomena by attributing them to what are ordinarily 
called physical forces, as electricity, heat, magnet- 
ism, chemical affinity, and so forth. Whether we 
call it a spirit or soul or by any other name, we 
must concede that the life principle is a specific 
force. And it will not help the materialists any 
to say that so far we have been unable to answer 
the question of what life is. They have no defi- 
nite ideas of the other forms of force, either. The 
wave theory, for example, is not a satisfactory 
solution. They all stand for groups of manifes- 
tations. We know as little of what electricity 
really is as we know what life is. We do not have 
of these the same conception as we have, for ex- 
ample, of numbers. All we know is that under 
certain conditions electricity will do certain 
things, just as we know that life will act in a cer- 
tain way under given conditions. Nowadays the 
biologists experiment with the life force as physi- 
cists do with heat or electricity, or the chemists 
with chemical affinity. And, by the way, this term 
" chemical affinity," in spite of constant attacks 
upon it, has retained its position as a specific 
force. Life comes from preexisting life, heat from 
preexisting heat, electricity from preexisting elec- 
tricity. But life has this one peculiarity, and it 
may truly be called specific, that it of itself strives 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 105 

to keep active, while the others may be so neu- 
tralized that nothing but some external force will 
make them active again or make them manifest 
themselves again. Take, for example, heat. By 
the life force it was imprisoned in certain chemical 
compositions as part of a cell of a tree ; there it 
remained in the wood and in the coal into which 
it formed for thousands of years, until by the ap- 
plication of heat it is again released. Everything 
seems to be electric, as appears from the process 
of induction, yet this electricity will not show it- 
self until brought into proximity with active elec- 
tricity. But neither the chemist nor the physicist 
can by the widest stretch of imagination attrib- 
ute the coordination of cell activities in complex 
individuals to their pet forces, which are really the 
servants of the life force. 

Mounting higher in the scale of life, we come 
to the other group of living beings, the complex 
or multi-cellular individuals. These consist of 
groups of cells united into one individual, coop- 
erating for their common welfare, themselves func- 
tioning as if they were independent cells ; that is, 
they assimilate and reproduce the same, and the 
whole individual reproduces also. Only the man- 
ner of reproducing the complex individual differs 
from the simple process of segmentation. This is 
true of the simple plant as well as of man, the 
highest form of complex life. In all of them life 
begins the same, by the fusion of the two elements, 
and up to a certain stage in the development all 



106 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

look and behave alike. Then comes differentia- 
tion of cell functions. Cells derived from the same 
parent cells assume different shapes, develop dif- 
ferent chemical composition, — all this having a 
well defined aim in view. Groups of cells form 
themselves into distinct organs, all different in 
construction and designed to do different work in 
the economy of the complex individual, — the pur- 
pose of all this being the preservation of all the 
cells by preserving the entire group and the repro- 
duction of the group individual. What super- 
vises this development and what preserves the or- 
ganization after it is completed ; what induces this 
coordination of functions .^^ Can it be attributed 
to physical or chemical forces .-^ Why do they not 
act the same way when not connected with living 
things.'' What is the purpose of this complex 
being? The elimination of chance and the pres- 
ervation of active life. The higher we rise in the 
scale of life, the more manifest becomes this 
maxim. Unicellular living beings depend for their 
existence upon favorable conditions and surround- 
ings. If the element in which they subsist con- 
tains necessary ingredients, they can thrive and 
multiply ; if it does not, life ceases to manifest it- 
self. In complex beings, the entire individual pro- 
vides favorable conditions for the cells of which it 
consists : that is the reason for its existence. It 
has different organs which procure, prepare and 
supply the entire cellular community with the 
necessary elements of successful life, eliminate 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 107 

harmful by-products and combat all other cell life 
not germane to them. True that these organs use 
the ordinary physical and chemical forces to ac- 
complish their purpose, that they are built and 
constructed and operate along mechanical lines ; 
but there still remains clear and distinct the sepa- 
rate something which directs these activities. 
This the materialist overlooks. He makes the 
fatal error of taking the means for the end. He 
thinks that because the energy in the body is gen- 
erated by the known process of combustion just 
as it is in the boiler, the body or its organs are no 
better than a boiler and that he has found the 
life principle. 

But essentially there is no difference between 
the life force which manifests itself in an oak, in 
a horse or in a man : the life cell is the same every- 
where ; but some groups are cooperating better 
and more efficiently than others ; the higher we go 
the more and more is provided against contin- 
gencies and less is left to chance. All the activi- 
ties of complex organisms, the center around 
which the whole scheme revolves, is the preserva- 
tion and perpetuation of cell life. The existence 
of any particular individual, whether simple or 
complex, is immaterial. If one complex group of 
cells, or a simple cell, has the power to destroy 
another group or individual cell, it is but to pre- 
serve its own cells or itself. Thus the destruction 
of individuals is but a means of the preservation 
of life. A cat kills a mouse and thereby supplies 



108 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

food to its own cells ; its being able to do so shows 
its greater efRciency to perpetuate life. Conse- 
quently we must not attach too much importance 
to the individual or group of individuals ; their 
perpetuation is not the end, but only the means. 

Here we have a coil of wire charged with elec- 
tricity in a perceivable way ; we insert into it an- 
other coil which was not electrified. As soon as 
the smaller coil is placed within the larger one, by 
a mysterious process which we call induction it also 
becomes appreciably electrified. While to a cer- 
tain extent we can trace the source of the electric- 
ity in the larger coil, we do not really know whence 
it came, but we know still less of the source of the 
electricity in the smaller coil. The larger one did 
not apparently lose any of its force ; whence, then, 
came the electricity in the smaller coil.'' But we 
have two electrified individuals. In one hand I 
have a piece of hot iron ; near it I hold another 
piece of cold iron. After a while the hot iron be- 
comes colder and the cold iron becomes warmer. 
To a certain extent I can trace the source of heat 
in the hot piece of iron, but I do not know what 
heat really is or whence it ultimately came. Here 
we have two heat individuals. I plant the seed of 
a violet in the ground ; a plant grows out of it and 
produces more seeds, which if planted will pro- 
duce more violet plants. To a certain extent I 
can trace the force which makes the violets grow, 
but I do not know what the life force is. Here we 
have two life individuals. We say, and we con- 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 109 

sider it as an absolute truth, that heat, electricity, 
and other what are called material forces, do not 
become annihilated just because they cease to 
manifest themselves in some particular objects. 
Our present theory is that they do exist uni- 
versally and that they are indestructible, but that 
they can be made to manifest themselves under 
favorable conditions. Such conditions are the in- 
dividuals. Why cannot we say the same thing 
of the life force .? 

Dip a wooden cask into the ocean : as long as 
the wood will last it will keep separate and dis- 
tinguishable the quantity of water which it con- 
tained; but as soon as the staves rot, the water 
will mix with the rest of the ocean and become 
indistinguishable; it will lose its identity, its in- 
dividuality. Should it acquire while in the cask 
additional salts, these will become diffused and 
add to the total salinity of the ocean. The ex- 
periences which one individual acquires in his life- 
time become the experiences of the whole, and will 
make the elimination of chance, the grand pur- 
pose of all life, the more certain. That is the 
work of God ; it is a step in evolution. 

VII. ACTION OR INACTION 

Biology, then, has demonstrated that all the 
organized living beings have a similar beginning 
up to a certain stage of their embryonic develop- 
ment and are indistinguishable ; and it can bc- 
safely said that in the subsequent manifestations 



110 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

of the life force man possesses essentially no fac- 
ulties which are not possessed by other animals, 
the difference being only in the degree of their ef- 
ficiency. If that be so, why should man alone 
be individually immortal? We come to this di- 
lemma : either all life is immortal or none ; and 
further, either all animals are individually im- 
mortal or none. Plants have the same vegetative 
faculty as man ; if it is persistent in man, why not 
in plants? Animals have a memory to make them 
individuals the same as man ; if man is individu- 
ally immortal, why not the animals? The trouble 
is that ancient prejudices have raised man to a 
very high plane in his own estimation, and have 
created in him a very exalted idea of his own im- 
portance and clouded his reason, so that he con- 
siders himself humiliated to be classed with other 
animals, which prevents him from taking an un- 
biased view of the world. Either there is heaven 
and hell for all animals, as for man, or for none, 
with difference only in degree. The dog would be 
satisfied with a plentiful supply of good bones, 
with a shady and warm nook to sleep in and no 
fleas to bother him ; while man craves a golden 
crown, a pair of wings, and a harp, and the satis- 
faction of knowing that his earthly enemy is eter- 
nally frying in hell. In the grand scheme of the 
universe all life is equally important and precious, 
subject, of course, to the law of the survival of 
the fittest individual. There are no special ex- 
ceptions in favor of man. If we believe in an in- 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 111 

dividual God sitting on the throne of heaven and 
ruling the world like any other ruler by divine 
power, the human mind cannot solve the question 
of immortality on a rational basis ; it must for- 
ever remain a matter of faith in revealed religion. 
Our knowledge of life even to-day and faith in in- 
dividual immortality cannot stand side by side. 
If, however, we take the pantheistic view of God 
and combine it with the evolution theory of the 
origin of the universe, we shall have a rational 
basis to work upon. If the world is but the mani- 
festation of the activities of the Infinite, and if 
the different beings are but the different forms of 
this manifestation, then it is plain that man is 
immortal, — but not as an individual, but as a 
part of the entire indestructible universe. The 
force that enlivens his body is but a spark of the 
force that maintains the universe. In him it mani- 
fests itself one way, in the plant in another way, 
and in the inanimate matter but in other ways 
again. This conclusion is not at all as humiliat- 
ing to man's pride as it would first appear: is it 
better to be a part of the all-pervading Infinite 
than to be an insignificant individual subject to 
that Infinite .P What matters it whether, after 
" we have shuffled off this mortal coil," we can re- 
member who we were in this life, can recall our 
experiences on this earth, recollect our trials, trib- 
ulations, joys and happiness? Is not the knowl- 
edge that we shall be merged in the Infinite and 
continue to take part in its activities more nobling 



112 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

than the belief that after this life we shall wear a 
golden crown, sprout wings and sing hosannas for 
all eternity? Is not the participation in the ac- 
tivities of the universe for all eternity more in- 
spiring than an existence of utter leisure and 
inactivity? Is it not better to forget the self- 
created worries of this life, its artificial unpleas- 
antness and man-made injustice, than to hope 
that in after-life we shall remember them all but 
be comforted by the knowledge that those who 
caused them are eternally damned? If we are to 
be transformed into perfect beings, would that not 
be a fly in the ointment? And would not our 
perfect beings, their feelings of mercy being inten- 
sified, feel miserable to think that so many other 
beings have to endure the eternal tortures of hell's 
fire? What a monotonous existence that would 
be ! Of course there is entertained a more spir- 
itual and intellectual idea of heaven, — namely, 
that man's thirst for knowledge will be satisfied 
and all the bothersome questions of this life will 
be answered, — that all the noble ideals of man will 
be attained; but there is no doubt that the com- 
plete satisfaction of all these intellectual desires 
would soon pale upon us ; in fact, such a view con- 
tains an absurdity. It is the very inability to 
satisfy these spiritual and intellectual desires that 
constitutes their charm. A satisfied mind would 
be like discharged electricity : — it would be exist- 
ent, but not perceivable. If man were to know 
everything about this world, with what then would 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 113 

his mind occupy itself? How could a man whose 
principal desire in this life was to do active works 
of charity and mercy satisfy his desire in heaven? 
He would like to help the damned, and not being 
able to do so would make him miserable. In other 
words, what would be the use of having a mind if 
it did not have an opportunity to delve and to 
inquire ; what would be the use of having desires if 
they should be satisfied fully at the very beginning 
of this existence? 

It is not God's plan: if it were, He would have 
created all beings perfect instead of developing 
them through the slow process of evolution. He 
could have done it and then rested ; but the ideas 
of rest and of an Infinite God are incompatible, 
and we therefore see the universe unfolding itself 
like a beautiful flower, the contemplation and in- 
vestigation of which, though only fragmentary, 
are worth more than an eternity of peaceful bliss. 

But it may be objected that, since the doctrine 
of individual immortality has played such an im- 
portant part in civilizing mankind in that, with 
the accompanying doctrine of future rewards and 
punishments, it was a restraint upon evil doing 
and an inducement to doing good, it ought not to 
be stricken down. There is no doubt that it 
helped in some respects to do all this, but it does 
not follow that it is indispensably necessary to 
future progress and that it will always be suitable. 
Heaven and hell have lost their influence to a great 
measure with millions of people. Advanced 



114 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

knowledge has shaken man's faith in them ; the 
whole structure is tottering. Neither does it fol- 
low that man's ethical principles should never ad- 
vance. There is an inherent weakness in this doc- 
trine of future rewards and punishments. It rep- 
resents something intangible and indefinite ; some- 
thing far in the future and at best uncertain. 
Human passions, selfishness and personal inter- 
ests, the primordial passions, are present realities 
with which man has to cope in his every-day life. 
He needs something real to help him in his strug- 
gle with them. Hell loses its terror in the pres- 
ence of overwhelming passion, of prospect of great 
personal gain and the possibility of satisfying 
strong desires. It is a question which, though im- 
possible of answer, may still be raised, whether 
humanity would not have made greater progress 
had it proceeded along the lines of personal re- 
sponsibility and honor for the same length of time 
as it has by basing its ethics on the hopes of future 
rewards and punishments. Pagan Rome and 
Greece were sufficiently advanced intellectually to 
receive these principles into their moral codes. 
Reason can deduce sufficient principles of ethics 
from human nature and social necessities. 

Taking this view of the human soul, the sym- 
bolism of resurrection assumes a new and more 
exalted meaning. It does not mean the union of 
the body with the soul to continue an inter- 
rupted existence in a state similar to this at some 
indefinite future time, but an awakening now to 



DREAMLAND AND SPIRIT WORLD 115 

the knowledge and consciousness of our impor- 
tance in the scheme of the eternal universe. It 
represents our conscious union with the life as we 
see it in the lily, the rose, as we hear it in the song 
of the birds ; it represents a union with the spheres 
of the heavens and the penetration of the spaces 
of infinity. The glory of the sun becomes our 
glory, the beauty and the sweet odor of the flowers 
become our beauty and our odors. It means the 
doing of the word of God, the passage through the 
gates of heaven now. 



CHAPTER IV 

EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 

Political theorists of the Middle Ages have ex- 
pended a good deal of ingenuity and versatility in 
their attempts to explain the necessity for rules 
of human conduct by comparing society to the 
human body. They went to great lengths in try- 
ing to find analogies between the bodily organs 
and the social hierarchy and civil classifications, 
and the necessity for them. Their knowledge of 
the human body being limited, and their purpose 
being to justify the then existing order of things, 
some of their efforts look to us truly ridiculous. 
Thus a certain ecclesiastic, John of Salisbury, 
who lived in the twelfth century, said that the 
prince was the head, the senate the heart, the court 
the sides, the officers and judges the eyes, ears and 
tongue, the executive officials the unarmed and the 
army the armed hands, the financial department 
the belly and the intestines, the landfolk, crafts- 
men and the like the feet of the social organisms ; 
that the protection of the common folk was the 
shoeing and their troubles the social gout. Nicho- 
laus of Cues, another worthy ecclesiastic, a truly 

brilliant man, who lived in the fifteenth century, 
116 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 117 

went into great details along these lines, making 
use of all the medical knowledge of his age; and 
he found a counterpart in the social order for 
every bodily organ, every pleasure and every ill- 
ness. As is always the case, every such speculator 
had a jealous opponent who in turn tried to be- 
little him by reducing his pet theories to absurdi- 
ties. Thus it was pointed out that if the head be 
the king, then, since the popes also claimed sov- 
ereignty, society was a double-headed monster; 
that if the common folk be the feet, then society 
was blessed with a great multitude of them and 
excelled the centipede. And so on. Such replies 
necessitated a defense and some refined distinctions 
and nice hairsplittings, which was the fashion of 
those days, and the war of wits went on merrily. 
We all know the fable of the strike declared by 
the organs of the human body against the stomach, 
the prototype of modern labor strikes. 

I. THE HUMAN BODY A PERFECT 
DEMOCRACY 

Although carrying out analogies to absurd mi- 
nutiae may become ridiculous, their judicious use 
may be very helpful to the formation of concep- 
tions, especially of abstruse subjects. The hu- 
man body, as we know it to-day, is a good type of 
perfect democracy. The trouble with those sages 
of old was that they knew little of the body and 
tried to justify their unjust social order of privi- 
leged classes. But if we consider the human body 



118 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

a perfectly coordinated group of cells, all working 
in harmony for the general welfare, we have a 
picture of society during the hoped-for millennium. 
The ancients tried to demonstrate subordination 
and to justify it, while the controlling principle of 
the body is coordination. In the workings of the 
human cells we see absolute justice: every cell 
gets all its needs, no more, no less, and every cell 
performs its functions to the limit of its abil- 
ity. There are no favorites. While it would 
seem that the gustatory cell in the tongue when 
performing its functions of tasting is favored over 
the epithelial cell in the colon, it is not so; it gets 
only as much as the latter from its labors. It 
gets only the necessary food and no more; the 
pleasant sensation is not favoritism, because it is 
unconscious of it. The nerve cell in the brain, 
performing a wonderful feat of reasoning, is not 
more important than the apparently less noble cell 
on the sole of the foot. Every cell must perform 
its assigned duty or it will be cast away. Cells 
working harder get more food, and it is taken 
away from those which do not need it. 

If men of themselves could so regulate their 
conduct as to act in such perfect harmony the 
" kingdom of God " would be materialized on earth 
and we should not need external rules of conduct. 
But the Old Nick comes in. Men are not like the 
cells, they have free wills ; they have eaten of the 
tree of knowledge of good and evil. The cells 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 119 

have no such knowledge. And with this, sad to 
say, our beautiful analogy ends. 

MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 

Man's intellectual faculties are so highly devel- 
oped that we have made them the distinctive mark 
of the species. Because man has intellect he is 
responsible and is, therefore, a moral thing. His 
so-called free will is not a distinctive faculty. It 
was developed from the limited ability of the pri- 
mordial cell to be able to move and to control its 
movements, and animals, to whom we do not con- 
cede this free will, have the power of controlling 
their actions ; they can do things which may be in- 
jurious to them or to others. The moral quality 
attaches to man's actions because he can under- 
stand them and their consequences. Insane men, 
although they evidently have the same faculty of 
free will, are not held responsible, because they 
know not what they do. Man is morally responsi- 
ble only to the extent of his knowledge. 

NATURAL CRIMES AND VIRTUES 

Man knows himself to a certain extent. This 
knowledge ought to be so utilized in regulating his 
conduct as not to do anything that is detrimental 
to his own nature and contrary to its law. Any 
willful act which is contrary to these laws is the 
highest crime of which he is capable. His body is 
a perfectly regulated society of cells which, if not 



120 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

interfered with, will attain the aim for which it 
exists, the perpetuation of life. Any discord in- 
troduced into this harmonious working is detri- 
mental to it and is in opposition to the divine 
manifestation through him. The perversion of 
the different bodily organs from their natural pur- 
poses, the introduction into the system of sub- 
stances known to be injurious, the prevention of 
the body from taking the necessary rest, — in a 
word, anything that is harmful to it is a violation 
of the eternal laws of nature. Any willful act 
which shortens life is akin to murder. Similarly, 
every act which arbitrarily deprives another man 
of the means of providing sustenance to his own 
body or which supplies him with substances that 
are injurious to it is partial murder. Causing 
and maintaining unsanitary conditions is another 
crime of this category. On the other hand, help- 
fulness is a natural virtue, the promotion of the 
work of the Infinite. We are all brothers, not 
only because we have banded together in a society, 
not only because we have descended from some 
remote common ancestor, but also because the 
component elements, the cells, of wliich our bodies 
consist are enlivened with the same universal life, 
the same manifestations of the Infinite. The in- 
dividual is but an incident, a grouping of these 
cells, the better to carry out the chief end, the 
preservation of universal life. The question, " Am 
I my brother's keeper .? " was condemned as soon 
as it was uttered. And it will not do to say that 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 121 

everyone has his own free will and can take care 
of himself; that will not remove the responsibility 
from the act of any other man. Every act must 
stand on its own merits, and the test is : will your 
act have harmful consequences to you or to an- 
other? It is immaterial whether you do injury to 
yourself or to another, whether you damage your 
own life elements or another's ; in either case you 
are trying to destroy universal life. 

II. SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 

Man knows the social relations in which he lives 
and their necessary consequences. It would be 
useless to speculate whether man is naturally gre- 
garious or whether he developed that instinct : so- 
ciety is a fact. It is a means of carrying out the 
plans of the Infinite. For is not man able to 
maintain himself better and more securely because 
he lives a social life.'' Do not animals congregate 
for the same purpose.'' 

Social relations demand individual coopera- 
tion. The realization of this maxim by everyone 
is the aim of ethical teachings. Its observance 
creates the feeling of responsibility, which should 
be the guiding star of all. Cooperation is social 
justice. In the human body every cell performs 
its allotted functions ; so every man should per- 
form his duties, because the ultimate success of 
the society in which he lives demands it. The cells 
in the human body are ruled by an inexorable law, 
and they cannot do wrong because they do not un- 



122 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

derstand their positions in the body. They act 
blindly, automatically. With the individual man 
it is different. He has intellect and volition, and, 
therefore, a free will ; he is a free agent. Know- 
ing this and knowing the relations he sustains to 
others and the whole society, he ought to regulate 
his conduct so that it be conducive to the attain- 
ment of the ends which the social organism has in 
view. This rule is a positive one. Its observance 
is not merely restrictive. It not only requires 
man to forbear from doing anything injurious to 
others, but it also demands of him to do every- 
thing that is beneficial to others and to the entire 
social organism. In that the purpose of the rules 
of ethics differs from the purpose of the rules of 
law. The law is mostly prohibitive insofar as it 
regulates private human conduct. Outside of the 
few positive duties towards the state as a whole, 
the rules of law consist merely of prohibitions. 
They are in the negative: thou shalt not. Their 
aim is the preservation of peace and order, abso- 
lute necessities. For that reason they are not 
fully competent to bring about such coordination 
and cooperation as are necessary for the attain- 
ment of social aims. They must be supplemented 
by positive ethical rules which prescribe what man 
shall do. The position of the law in limiting it- 
self only to prohibitions can be justified on the 
grounds of lack of means of enforcing positive pri- 
vate rules, if it had any. 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 123 



THE MORAL CONFLICT 

The task of regulating and coordinating human 
conduct is an enormous one. There are man's 
primal instincts of self-preservation and propaga- 
tion. These instincts are primordial, and are the 
natural attributes of every life cell. Their ac- 
cumulated effect is those strong desires, passions 
and other mental conditions which control our 
every act. The senses, the intellect, the senti- 
ments and emotions, and even our moral sense and 
social instinct are but the means of carrying out 
these primal instincts. Here, then, is the source 
of conflict between good and evil. These primor- 
dial instincts are blind forces, — the cell is not con- 
scious of them ; their aim is the preservation of 
the individual; they are selfish. The mind of the 
complex individual has found out that the destiny 
of man, the preservation of the universal life force, 
can be better attained through social organiza- 
tion and in ways which may have to run counter 
to these cell instincts ; through the cooperation of 
the complex individuals, and, therefore, rules are 
necessary to coordinate the acts of the complex 
individual to that aim, even if some of these rules 
should in some particular detail place restraints 
upon the selfish instincts of the cells. The moral 
conflict is a struggle between the individual and 
the universal, between the elemental passions of the 
cells to preserve their lives even if it be necessary 



IM THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

thereby to destroy other cells possessing similar 
life. 

III. RIGHTS OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 

It is not, or should not be, the province of eth- 
ics to occupy itself with the particular theories 
for putting into practice this cardinal principle : 
it should confine itself to the cultivation of the 
conviction of the necessity of coordination, no 
matter how it is applied to the multifarious social 
activities and functions. Thus, for example, it is 
not within the province of ethics to preach any 
particular property rights. If all men were thor- 
oughly imbued with the necessity for cooperation 
and the coordination of all their acts to the com- 
mon aim, it would be immaterial whether we recog- 
nized individual property rights, as we do now, or 
whether the dreamed-of communal ownership were 
practiced. The theory of personal property 
rights is but the present-day means of carrying 
out the end. It is a debatable question whether 
it is the best and the wisest means. It certainly 
is the source of a great percentage of the social 
evils. On the other hand, neither could commu- 
nism be successfully practiced unless men did fully 
realize the necessity of perfect coordination of 
their individual acts and desires. And by the 
way, in our system of corporate ownership we are 
certainly drifting to communism, and it will pos- 
sibly be the means of ultimately establishing it, 
even if not in the form in which some theorists are 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 125 

dreaming of. These, however, are questions of 
economics and not of ethics, which is essentially 
educational. 

THE MARRIAGE RELATION 

Private ownership of property necessitated the 
establishment of the marriage relation, with its 
concomitant rules of morality, strictly so called. 
Licentiousness is a natural crime, a perversion of 
natural functions ; the destruction of its conse- 
quences, plain murder; nor does marriage justify 
this most unnatural practice. Marriage is a so- 
cial necessity because of the property restrictions. 
The nurturing and the bringing up of the off- 
spring has been made complicated by our social 
order, because of personal property rights. 

Promiscuous procreation under our present so- 
cial system and in our present frame of mind and 
habits of thinking is out of question ; it is cer- 
tainly inadvisable, but it cannot be said that it 
would be absolutely wrong. Mating for life is not 
universal in nature, but society has made it neces- 
sary. The marriage institution and especially 
monogamy is not an unadulterated blessing. To- 
gether with its parent, the private ownership of 
property, it has been the disturber of peace and 
social order. The reason for this is that these 
two institutions aim to place restrictions on the 
tAvo primal instincts, preservation and reproduc- 
tion. Should we return to the earth in, say, a 
thousand years hence, we should find astonishing 



126 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

changes along these lines, and they will be due to 
the radical changes in the views mankind will have 
of these two institutions. It may be objected 
that marriage is founded on a natural sentiment, 
the attraction a couple conceive for one another. 
True, but in itself that is not an argument for life- 
long mating and for monogamy, and we cannot 
positively say that the uncompromising view we 
take is not the result of sentiments cultivated by 
environment and training. The millions of love- 
less homes and the very prevalent vice of marital 
infidelity are strong arguments against the for- 
mer, and the fact that the greater portion of 
mankind, both in numbers and in time, practices 
and practiced polygamy, which is a compara- 
tively modern institution, argues against the lat- 
ter. It is a question whether the pangs of jeal- 
ousy do not outweigh the bliss of single love. Be- 
sides, there are more women than men. But as 
long as our social order remains what it is and 
our mental state and habit of thought will be what 
they are now, these two institutions will have to 
remain. Our feelings even now are undergoing a 
radical change in the view we take of parental 
rights and duties. It is a far cry from the abso- 
lute rights of life and death which a father had 
over his children not so very long ago to our Ju- 
venile Court system. The rights of the parents 
are correlatives of their duties, — a sort of com- 
pensation. Now we are changing all this. The 
theory of our Juvenile Court laws is that the in- 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 127 

terest of the state in the children is paramount 
and supreme; that if the parents do not fulfill 
their duties according to the standards prescribed 
by law, the courts are given jurisdiction to step 
in and assume the responsibility of educating the 
children according to these standards. Compul- 
sory education was the first step in this direction, 
and we are ever pushing this principle further. 
The home is beginning to lose its importance. 
Whether it is a wise departure or not is another 
question. Here is another indication of our drift 
towards communism. 

IV. CONSCIENCE 

Above all our acts there sit in judgment our 
conscience or moral sense and the sense of jus- 
tice. But these are variable quantities as to the 
details, depending upon the knowledge which we 
have of our nature and the social relations. It is 
difficult to say whether the moral sense is a sepa- 
rate faculty or whether it is but a cultivated, fixed 
habit of thought. If it were a separate faculty 
it might be fair to presume that it would show it- 
self in everybody, yet we know that there are men, 
even groups of men, in whom it does not show it- 
self; that it is the result of environment and of 
education seems to be more probable. Even in 
the crudest savages, nay, even in the animals liv- 
ing in communities, there seems to be the sense of 
the necessity of some regulation ; but we cannot go 
safely beyond this. It may be argued that since 



128 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

the cells are dominated by the life principle, con- 
trolling and coordinating their functions, it mani- 
fests itself in the moral sense of the complex or- 
ganism, which could be called their collective ex- 
pression. Conscience is said to be elastic ; and so 
it is. We see variations in its sensitiveness both 
in the past and among the different races, all de- 
pending upon the degree of mental development. 
When people knew the body as consisting of a 
number of organs, they thought that in society 
classes were necessary and that their different 
rights and privileges had a natural foundation. 
Some had to be noble and some had to be but 
drudges and slaves. It was supposed to have 
been so ordered by God. The Roman ladies, by a 
turn of their thumbs, gleefully sent to their deaths 
thousands of valiant gladiators ; to-day we pro- 
hibit prize fighting with padded gloves. The 
burning of the Christians and their massacre by 
savage beasts furnished a holiday for the Roman 
populace ; the execution of a criminal was a public 
spectacle not more than one hundred years ago ; 
to-day we are abolishing the death penalty even 
for the most brutal crimes. In the good old days 
of chivalry, men slew each other for sport ; to-day 
we want the countries engaged in supposedly legal 
war to show a just cause. The Polynesian even 
to-day does not scruple to make a meal out of a 
pious missionary ; on the other hand, we have so- 
cieties for the prevention of cruelty to animals, 
and people who are vegetarians because they do 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 129 

not believe that animals should be killed even to 
furnish them with food. It is not so far back in 
history that in good old England, in the full view 
of vast throngs, they cut down from the gallows 
some criminal before he was dead, revived him, 
ripped open his body, pulled out and seared his 
entrails with fire before his eyes, and after he died 
quartered his body and hung the parts up on the 
city walls for the edification of the people ; while 
we have written into our Federal Constitution a 
prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment 
and decry the public whipping of a wife-beater. 
In view of such violent and radical changes in the 
sensitiveness of the human conscience, and the 
public conscience is but the collective conscience 
of the individuals, we cannot say positively that 
it is a standard of fixed value and that it is a sepa- 
rate faculty of the human soul, but rather that it 
is but a habit of thought. At any rate, it cer- 
tainly depends wholly upon our intellectual devel- 
opment. 

V. JUSTICE 

" Justice " is a still less definite term. 

The fundamental principle of orthodox Chris- 
tianity, and a standard of justice, is that because 
God is infinite justice. He rewards virtue and pun- 
ishes sin, but that because He is infinite mercy, He 
has evolved the scheme of atonement by sacrificing 
His only begotten son to satisfy this justice. 
First of all, this principle contains an irreconcila- 



130 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

ble contradiction of terms: either His justice is 
not infinite, because it is limited by His mercy and 
love, or His mercy and love are not infinite, be- 
cause they are circumscribed by His justice. 
These attributes cannot possibly be all infinite. 
We question that the infinite love of the Father 
should allow the sacrifice of His only begotten son 
for the benefit of insignificant creatures of His 
whom he could have created perfect, and concern- 
ing whom, if He has not done so. His omniscience 
must have informed Him that they would be sin- 
ful and merit punishment. All these incongrui- 
ties and inconsistencies are assignable to the wrong 
conception of the term justice; it is the penalty 
for giving God human attributes, and making 
them infinite. The infinite is essentially unchange- 
able, and our idea of justice has undergone vari- 
ous and radical changes. Like everything else 
human, it has gone through a process of evolution. 
Our standards of justice have changed and are 
continually changing. We have, for example, 
long ago discarded the Mosaic standard of " eye 
for eye, tooth for tooth." 

What is justice.'' It is an elusive term, and if 
we analyze the different acts to which it is applied 
we are almost tempted to say that it has no mean- 
ing. Webster defines justice as " the principle of 
rectitude and just dealing of men with each other; 
also conformity to it; integrity, rectitude." This 
definition cannot, of course, be applied to the in- 
finite justice of God. 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 131 

I hire a man to do a certain work for me and 
we agree that for its performance I will pay him 
a certain amount; to do so is an act of justice. 
My neighbor does ten dollars' worth of damage to 
my property ; upon my request he pays me the ten 
dollars: that is justice too. There is no doubt 
about that. A strikes B in the face; B sues him 
in the courts of justice and A is made to pay a fine 
and is imprisoned for thirty days. Is that jus- 
tice.^ The central idea of the conception of jus- 
tice seems to be equalization or the rendering of 
equivalents : it may be advantage for advantage, 
advantage for disadvantage, and disadvantage for 
disadvantage. In the first two alternatives we 
are on fairly safe grounds, but the third alterna- 
tive is rather troublesome. Equal exchange of 
advantages is certainly just; to put a person in 
statu quo, when we have caused him damage is also 
just ; but it is difficult to see why one man should 
be allowed to cause a disadvantage to another who 
has done him some injury. It is called retributive 
justice, but the short word for it is vengeance. 
Now then, whether legalized or not, is vengeance 
justice.'' The first two cases may be called abso- 
lute and the standards have never varied, but our 
ideas of retributive justice have undergone radical 
changes. We do not consider it necessary that 
men be drawn and quartered in order to satisfy 
what Blackstone calls " the outraged majesty of 
the law." It took humanity many centuries to 
understand that vengeance, whether legalized or 



13a THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

not, is neither beneficial, nor inspiring, nor just. 
Of course, society for its protection and the pres- 
ervation of order needs some means of restraining 
men from violating its laws and rules, but we limit 
them now to that purpose. We are paroling oc- 
casional criminals and giving them opportunity to 
reform instead of taking their lives or administer- 
ing corporal punishments. Habitual criminals 
are put under restraint to prevent them from caus- 
ing more harm. Otherwise imprisonment is rather 
in the nature of a persuasive argument than a 
punishment for the crime. This is a far cry from 
legalized private vengeance. In the olden days, 
courts were sitting for the purpose of supervising 
the wreaking of private vengeance by the injured 
individuals and to enforce the rules which entitled 
them to revenge themselves upon those who had 
caused them injury. It took centuries to persuade 
men to give up what they considered their rights of 
revenge. It was considered the duty of the kins- 
men of a murdered person to hunt down and kill the 
murderer, and that was justice. Every crime had 
its measure of private punishment, not by the way 
of restraint, but as retribution and punishment. 
This was gradually changed into fines for the bene- 
fit of the state and to imprisonment, the state tak- 
ing upon itself to do the punishing; and that is 
called justice too. The question naturally sug- 
gests itself, what justice is there in making a man 
suffer just because he caused suffering to others? 
If John Smith strikes James Brown in the face, 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 133 

how is justice served if Brown returns the blow and 
causes Smith as much pain as Brown suffered? 
And how is justice served if Smith is made to pay 
a fine to the state or is imprisoned for a certain 
period of time as a punishment for the offense? 
Societj^ found it convenient and necessary to pro- 
tect private property, no matter how unjustly it 
was acquired. As long as society enforces this 
rule of convenience in its own way, we can find no 
fault with it ; but how is infinite justice served, and 
why should it be invoked to punish the criminal? 
Why should we expect God to interfere and en- 
force our rules of convenience? It is not conso- 
nant with perfect justice to expect God to con- 
demn a poor wretch to the eternal tortures of hell, 
because to save liis life he stole a loaf of bread 
from a Croesus who amassed his immense wealth by 
oppressing masses of people or extorted it from 
the sweat of thousands of helpless children? 
Would God punish an offender just to protect the 
property of a harpy who piled up a fortune by 
supplying poison to others, playing upon their 
weakness and then trying to avoid responsibility 
by saying that they have a free will and need not 
have bought it from him? And can we expect 
that Infinite Justice will punish the weak wretch 
who succumbed to his wiles and blandishments? 
Can we call the Infinitely Just God the Lord of 
Hosts assisting organized butchery to satisfy the 
ambition of one man or of a group of men? 

Our ideas of justice have changed and are con- 



134 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

tinually changing, the tendency being towards 
what we may assume to be the absolute standard 
as typified in the coordination of the cell activities 
in the human body. " Equality is equity " is the 
maxim of Equity Jurisprudence ; but vengeance, 
retribution, punishment and preferment are 
neither equality nor justice. Our ideals are high 
and they are difficult of attainment, but we are 
making rapid progress ; for centuries are but as 
seconds in the plans of the universe. 

VI. THE "HEART" 
PASSIONS AND SENTIMENTS 

But our ethical principles do not depend wholly 
upon our knowledge and mental development. In 
our conduct we are not wholly guided by what we 
know of our nature and our social relations, by 
what our reason tells us is wise and necessary. 
Our sentiments, our emotions, our feelings, which 
represent a distinct faculty, play a great part 
in controlling our actions and regulating our con- 
duct. And these are but the manifestations or 
workings of the same life force, having the same 
end in view, its perpetuation. They must be 
taken as supplementing the intellect. Their con- 
sideration, therefore, properly belongs to ethics. 
They are not intellectual faculties ; they are sep- 
arate and distinct in their operation, in many in- 
stances acting contrary to the dictates of reason. 
The mind certainly cannot control them at all 
times. I conceive an aversion for some one: no 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 135 

amount of reasoning will eradicate it. We aU 
know that affection for a person can neither be 
prevented nor destroyed by any amount of rea- 
soning; love will always find a way to circumvent 
it. In fact, efforts to do so are liable to produce 
the contrary result. The feeling of pity and 
compassion springs up uncalled for and persists 
in spite of any knowledge subsequently acquired 
which would show it to be groundless. 

Such a sentiment, first of all, is the rugged sense 
of honor. It is akin to the sense of responsibility, 
but is indistinguishable from it, as the latter is 
purely a habit of thought based on reason, on the 
complete comprehension and realization of natural 
and social necessities. The sense of honor is 
clearly a feeling, a sentiment, at times running con- 
trary to reason or common sense. It is a very 
powerful restraining influence. Its basis is self- 
respect. Its essence is a consuming desire to be 
true to one's self, to one's ideals. When fully 
developed its influence for good is incalculable. It 
is able to repress all selfish desires, to overcome the 
most powerful temptations. We hear, for exam- 
ple, of men refusing to accept bribes for no other 
reason but simply because they feel that it would 
outrage their sense of honor, that they cannot be 
bought, that their ideals are above material gain. 
They would consider themselves humiliated in their 
own eyes to do so. You say that it is due to pride. 
But what is pride? Can we define or describe it 
in any other term but one of feeling or sentiment, 



136 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

a high valuation of one's self? You cannot re- 
solve it into a physical or chemical force. It rep- 
resents a high conception of one's destiny and a 
fidelity to it. We know it, we feel it ; it is a 
specific expression of the life force subsisting in us 
and operating through us. It may be attributed 
to the primordial instinct of preserving one's life 
in its purity as it came from the hands of the In- 
finite. 

Then we have the feelings of love and pity for 
others. They are the sentiments that prompt us 
to self-denial and self-sacrifice. These are the 
gentle virtues whose beauty is the grace of the 
soul. They surely run contrary to reason. It is 
not the animal attraction of sexes that is meant 
here, nor the feelings inspired by hopes of reward, 
temporal or eternal; these are selfish. We all at 
some time or other were prompted to do things 
for others to our own disadvantage, not counting 
the cost, not expecting any reward, nor hoping for 
it. The sight of misery opens our wellsprings of 
pity and induces us to do everything in our power 
to relieve it. Such experiences are real, yet 
neither describable, definable nor analyzable. 
They are just feelings in whose presence reason 
stands mute. Yet what heroism and self-sacrifice 
have sprung from them ! Can we say that reason 
is capable of inducing a man to give to another 
the means of saving his own life and perish him- 
self? These sentiments may be called the expres- 
sion of the aggregate instinct of the cells, founded 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 137 

on their mutual attraction for each other, which 
binds them into a complex individual for the pur- 
pose of preservation ; the extension of this instinct 
to cells outside of the individual for the preserva- 
tion of universal life. It is the concrete expres- 
sion of the unity of life, the broadening of the 
principle of coordination and cooperation. 

Then we have our aspirations, the desire for 
growth and development, the inward pressure for 
perfection, the conscious ambition to grow, the 
dissatisfaction with the present and a longing for 
something better. This is one of the most dan- 
gerous sentiments, because of misconception of the 
standards which may be really debasing. Its 
foundation is the combination of both the primal 
instincts of propagation and self-preservation, 
and is, therefore, a great power both for good 
and evil. It served as the guiding star to man- 
kind's progress, and was also the cause of its tem- 
porary retrogression. Man never fell ; at times 
he slid backwards, Tantalus like, but the general 
tendency has ever been upward. He could not 
really help himself, he had to grow. Because of 
misconceived standards, a fault of the mind, he 
had temporary setbacks, which might have been 
caused by physical exhaustion, but he never com- 
pletely lost his ambition to develop. In its sim- 
plest form this desire manifests itself in the strug- 
gle for existence which we see in all living things. 
In this connection it may be remarked that the 
awakening of the Eastern nations from their long 



138 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

period of inactivity may be due to the shaking off 
of the effects of inherited exhaustions produced 
by their former intellectual activities. It is a 
well-known fact that mental development is at the 
expense of physical growth, which in its turn will 
react on the mind of the offspring, bringing about 
a general mental exhaustion. We see in history 
that periods of great intellectual and moral 
growths of nations were followed by mental tor- 
pidity. In the Eastern races we see this being 
shaken off and a new start made with fresh vigor. 
But this is a diversion which, though it opens a 
very interesting field of speculation, is beyond the 
scope of this discussion. This ambition to grow 
and develop finds its highest expression in the high 
ideals which have been set before mankind by its 
seers, prophets, redeemers, philosophers and poets, 
who are as darting tongues of flame leaping into 
the surrounding profundity of the Infinite. 

Then there is patience: not the dumb animal 
patience wliich endures bodily sufferings and petty 
material adversities of life with meekness and hu- 
mility, but the militant patience which can wait for 
the accomplishment and realization of ideals in 
spite of discouragements and setbacks, and in- 
duces man to hold fast to them and to work for 
their materialization. This patience discounts 
worldly gain and self-glorification and is the com- 
pass which holds man's course true to his ideals. 
Without it humanity would not have had any of 
these men who really count ; for there was not one 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 139 

of them who did not have to hew his way through 
a veritable jungle of discouragements. It an- 
swers Hamlet's despairing cry: 

" For who would bear the whips and scorns of time^ 
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
. . . and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes." 

" Truth is mighty and will prevail," but it is 
rather slow in doing so, and it takes patience to 
bear up with this delay ; it is patience that enlivens 
this saying : it is its soul. This patience is the one 
virtue which points unmistakably to the Infinite in 
us, as it disregards time and has its eyes on eter- 
nity. What if within the short span of our lives 
others do not see the truth as we see it? Patience 
says that the time will surely come when they will, 
even if we shall not be here to know about it. 
Patience teaches that seeing and knowing is suc- 
cess, and not what others think of it. Without 
patience there could be no growth, no develop- 
ment. 

VII. THE TRUE MOTIVE 

In nature, in other forms of the manifestation 
of the Infinite, utility and necessity are not the 
only aims, motives and guides ; on every hand we 
see her lavish prodigality of beauty. The loveli- 
ness and the perfume of the flowers may serve their 
useful purposes in propagating and preserving 
the species, but they are not indispensably neces- 



140 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

sary, and often repulsiveness and ugliness serve 
the same end. Is the glory of the rose or the 
fragrance of the violet absolutely necessary in its 
economy, when countless other plants get along 
without them? Is it a failure in the rose that its 
petals wither, or did the violet work for naught 
when distilling the sweet essences, because they 
dry up? Yet they all but produce seeds, which 
with the coming of the spring will grow other roses 
or violets only in their turn to wither and dry up. 
The nightingale pours out his soul-enchanting 
song to delight his mate, while thousands of other 
animals are silent or do but grunt. Can we say 
that it is a waste of energy and useless wear of the 
vocal cords, just because the sound waves are dis- 
sipated and lost in space and the brood could have 
been hatched without it? You say that these are 
but the promptings of dumb instinct or the work 
of blind forces. That is no answer. It is the In- 
finite manifesting itself in the rose or the nightin- 
gale, and it is neither dumb nor blind. What shall 
we say of the promptings of the human heart to 
love, to pity, to help and to sacrifice? Are they 
not as natural as the beauty of the rose, the scent 
of the violet, the song of the nightingale? Virtue 
is the beauty of the soul, high ideals its scent, and 
noble aspirations its song; and they are the laws 
of human nature. They are just as much the 
manifestations of the Infinite through Him as are 
the other beauties of nature. 

Should then these promptings be given full play 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 141 

for reward only? Are they to be suppressed only 
from fear of punishment? And if not rewarded, 
do they go for naught? Must we bargain with 
God to be good and virtuous? Should we stifle 
our better nature and deface it unless we are 
promised a crown in heaven? And if we do not 
receive such a reward, will our lives have been fail- 
ures and waste? Is it not enough to be conscious 
that, nurturing these sentiments and emotions, we 
are doing the work of our Father who is in heaven, 
and that in fact we are then in heaven? Are these 
feelings to be measured only by the standard of 
necessity or utility ; if not, why were they im- 
planted in our hearts? 

Careful cultivation of the rose will improve its 
beauty and that of its seed; should it not be 
enough for us to know that every good deed of 
ours will leave its work on countless generations 
to come? The fruits of the cultivation of our in- 
tellects and of our hearts will be inherited by mil- 
lions of human souls in the future. Do we crave 
any other, perchance a more selfish immortality? 
Would the hosannas sung by us as puny individuals 
for all eternity swell the grand chorus of the Infi- 
nite more than our good deeds, multiplied in count- 
less individuals, our descendants living on this 
earth as we do ? The life-purpose of Christ was to 
establish the kingdom of God on this earth: 
" Thy Kingdom come." Do we want selfishly to 
bottle up the fragrance of our souls, like the es- 
sence of the violet, or would we rather waste it 



142 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

liberally while we live and be satisfied to perpetu- 
ate it in our descendants ? When the flower with- 
ers and dries up, its present beauty and fragrance 
are gone insofar as they can be perceived, but it 
has stored them up imperceptibly in the seed which 
will bloom forth again : crush the flower, extract 
its essence, and there will be no seed. We die, we 
go to heaven as individuals and take along with us 
our stored up fragrance : what then ? Waste it on 
the angels and other inhabitants of heaven as self- 
ish as we are? " Heaven " is but a storage house 
whose shelves are stacked with countless bottles of 
dead perfume. 

Do we want to take our souls to heaven, there 
to be crowned and live in selfish glory, or do we 
want them to live on this earth to bloom again? 
If the former, death is actually the end of life, of 
activity, of development, of growth, of divine as- 
pirations, of high ideals ; if the latter, it is but the 
beginning of countless new lives. Have you suf- 
fered here the " slings and arrows of outrageous 
fortune " ? You shall have your reward, another 
jewel in your crown. Have I suffered? It has 
but tried my patience, made it stronger, thus to 
be inherited by others. Have you given your 
neighbor a cup of cold water? You shall have an- 
other robe in the heavenly mansions. When I did 
it, I meant to alleviate the suff^ering of my brother 
and to satiate my thirst to help him. You may 
receive your crown, but you will live in fear and 
trembling that you will lose it; I have my con- 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 143 

sclousness of life well spent according to the dic- 
tates of the laws implanted in me ; of this I shall 
never be deprived. I have improved myself and 
the souls of my descendants, while you will take 
your glory into heaven with you. Of course this 
is but carrying out the theory of eternal rewards 
and punishments to its logical conclusions, for ac- 
tually we are enjoying all the efforts of the 
past generations, and the souls of the dead sages 
and prophets and philanthropists live in us. Our 
minds are better able to see because they had vi- 
sions ; our hearts are attuned to nobler emotions 
and higher ideals because they have prepared the 
way for us. Even the countless millions of un- 
known saints have left their traces and written 
their messages on the universal human heart. The 
violet smells just as sweet where there is none to 
smell it, and the rose blooms just as beautiful 
where there is none to see it; but they fulfill their 
destinies just the same. 

Ethical rules place restrictions upon the free ex- 
ercise of the will ; if not for a reward or in fear of 
punishment, why should they be obeyed? Let us 
return to our analogy of the human body for an 
answer. The cells, not having volition, perform- 
their work automatically as long as conditions are 
favorable. The cells in the lining of the stomach 
will produce gastric juices when food is intro- 
duced, the cells in the retina will receive and con- 
vey impressions of light, the cells of memory will 
store these impressions, as long as their wants are 



144 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

supplied, but they singly cannot supply these 
wants ; so that if the conditions are unfavorable, 
they fail to perform their functions, with disas- 
trous results ; but they cannot be blamed. They 
cannot be held to account because they do not 
know their natures, their positions in the body; 
they do not know themselves. The result of their 
failure will cause distress to the entire organism 
and may even cause its death, a failure of the pur- 
pose for which it exists. But man as a member of 
an organized community knows himself, knows the 
relations in which he lives. If he fails to perform 
his duties as such a member or if he violates the 
rules which are necessary for the existence of the 
society, he antagonizes the purpose for which he is 
living in society ; the results of which will cause 
distress or may even prove fatal, and he himself 
will be a failure. 

In order to cooperate properly, man must first 
of all study his own nature and then acquaint him- 
self with the social relations. Proper knowledge 
of these will evoke in him the sense of his own re- 
sponsibility in the economy of the social organism. 
This sense will develop in proportion to his knowl- 
edge. Our progress, then, should be along these 
lines. When men come to know fully their posi- 
tion in society and realize the responsibility that it 
entails, we shall have a perfectly governed society : 
not until then. It is vain to hope for the millen- 
nium before then, and it is still vainer to expect it 
as long as men are taught to do their duties in 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 145 

hope of future rewards, or are driven to them with 
threats of future punishments. We need a com- 
plete change in base : the old system is not a de- 
cided success in spite of the thousands of years 
of trial it has been given. The beneficiaries of the 
system will always prefer present advantages, and 
those who suffer by it will forget the promised 
rewards under the stress of present needs. The 
result of this is antagonism, a destroyer of co- 
operation. To claim that we should let well 
enough alone and get along as best we can, not to 
let the people know that there should not be an 
unjust distribution of the social benefits, would be 
chaining down the mind, shutting the door of 
progress, suppressing the primal instinct for 
growth. And herein also lies the weakness of so- 
cialism, communism or whatever ism you may call 
it ; it is political and economic instead of being 
educational. Unless all men are first willing to 
cooperate and to coordinate their private interests 
to the interest of the community, and until this 
willingness has become a fixed habit of thought, 
until their feelings and emotions have been trained 
to it, these theories are impractical. The present 
need is not an economic or political revolution, 
but an ethical, an educational revolution. Men 
must first be taught that only by assuming their 
full responsibilities can they attain their highest 
destiny. They must be taught to give as well as 
to take. They must first change their ideals and 
standards of success. They must first feel that 



146 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

work is not a burden and leisure a blessing; that 
the gratification of sensual desires is not the acme 
of happiness ; that happiness and contentment are 
not to be gained by the acquisition of wealth alone. 
At the root of all our present social evils is our 
theory of private property. There is a good deal 
of agitation at present against the too great con- 
centration of wealth, but those are false prophets 
who are trying to create class feelings based on 
wealth. The modern tendency to corporate own- 
ership is towards communism, and it would be far 
wiser to go with the current than against it. In- 
stead of denouncing so-called capital, these false 
prophets should preach to the workingmen to ac- 
quire it. A concerted, patient movement along 
this line would abolish class differences sooner 
than active opposition. Workmen would then 
recognize more easily their responsibility and co- 
operate for the success of the whole organization. 
Cooperation and coordination of individual activi- 
ties should become the watchword. Millions of 
workingmen are but as slaves driven to their tasks, 
laboring without any interest in their work, and 
grumbling that they are not better compensated 
for doing as little as they can, and reviling at 
those who by their earnestness, perseverance, fru- 
gality and diligence have acquired property be- 
yond their immediate needs. They look simply to 
the reward and do just enough that they may not 
be punished with dismissal. They do not realize 
that only by the cooperation of all can the entire 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 147 

social organism be prosperous ; that everyone must 
contribute his mite, just as every cell in the body 
performs its allotted function. This false habit 
of thought of doing tilings in hope of reward or 
from fear of punishment pervades our whole sys- 
tem. And capital, that is, the wideawake man- 
agers of it have realized this, if we are to judge 
from their efforts to interest labor in investing its 
savings in the stock of companies for which they 
work. Their aim may not be very ideal or exalted 
or free from selfishness, but if those false prophets 
of labor promoted this effort instead of foolishly 
opposing it, the fruits would be apparent very 
soon. There are many industries in which the la- 
borers could acquire the controlling interest, and 
if they pooled their shares would control their pol- 
icies, or at least exercise such a powerful influence 
that it could not be disregarded. In fact, in time 
the different commissions for the control of busi- 
ness, very dangerous institutions of which the 
founders of this republic had great dread, would 
become useless, notwithstanding that the effi- 
ciency of some is rather doubtful. There is no 
use preaching exalted theories unless some practi- 
cal means is found to apply them to existing con- 
ditions without violent changes or revolutions. 
The oak does not spring up from the acorn in 
full foliage and sturdiness ; nor has man sprung, 
like Minerva, in full war panoply out of the 
head of Jove. We must begin with the proper 
understanding of ourselves and our relations and 



148 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

their responsibilities, and this to the extent of a 
fixed habit of thought. This applies to both high 
and low, if there is such a thing, the rich and the 
poor. The world owes everyone a living; but we 
must not apply this only to ourselves but concede 
it also to others. This will work out our destiny 
and the destiny of society, which is but another 
way of saying that it is carrying out the work of 
God. It means growth ; it means development. 

This applies equally to anarchy, with its high- 
sounding theory and seemingly exalted ideals. If 
men could and would coordinate their conduct as 
perfectly as do the cells of the body for the com- 
mon welfare, which may be possible, they having 
an intellect and a will, without there being any 
authority over them to supervise their conduct, 
we could live in anarchy. Having no expensive 
machinery of government over us would be bene- 
ficial, as its cost could be diverted to more directly 
profitable uses ; but such a state presupposes per- 
fect men. The overthrow of existing govern- 
ments under the present circumstances would, of 
course, spell disaster. The strange part of it is 
that the leaders of those deluded theorists are 
people who cannot conform their actions to the 
principles of justice even in the face of possible 
punishment, and whatever they attempt to do is 
in violation of their own principles ; for they do 
not concede to others what they demand for them- 
selves. When in trouble they very loudly demand 
the protection of those laws whose authority to 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 149 

rule others they deny. Anarchy is a beautiful 
dream, but its realization is far, far away. Let 
us hope that the time will come when governments 
will not be necessary, when men will perform their 
duties only through their sense of justice: let us 
have that much faith in humanity. It is possible, 
for there are millions of men who do their share 
of the world's work without any regard for the 
law, to whom the law is not a burden. The objec- 
tion is not to the principles of anarchy, but to 
the anarchists, who want to enforce them now and 
by force, an unanarchistic procedure. 

VIII. MORAL GROWTH 

By cultivation man has improved some species 
of plants and has also changed the nature of some 
animals. The ancestor of a big, rosy cheeked, 
luscious apple could hardly recognize in it his 
progeny ; nor could prehistoric man recognize in 
our mental and moral development the fruits of 
his labors. Living beings possessing little or no 
intelligence depend upon chance and favorable 
conditions for their improvement ; because of his 
intellect, man creates his own conditions. He can 
find out what is good for him. We are evolving; 
our physical growth may not be very noticeable 
or material, but our mental and moral growth has 
been great within historical times. Certain spe- 
cies of plants we have been able to improve, others 
have resisted our efforts because of lack of capac- 
ity. Man's capacity for improvement is unlim- 



150 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

ited. His original capacity is the capacity of the 
Infinite. Heredity, which is the mark of God on 
our souls, has enabled us to extend this growth 
over countless ages. And by the way, what is 
heredity? There is no physical explanation for 
it. Neither can individualists answer this question. 
How can spiritual attributes be inherited.'' How 
can you account for national characteristics? 
How do the good and bad characteristics of a man 
impress themselves upon his offspring? If a 
man's soul is individually immortal and indivisible, 
how can it communicate its qualities through the 
organism of propagation? How can a son in- 
herit his father's tenderness, bravery, honesty, 
fidelity, cowardice, viciousness, brutality, treach- 
ery, or a whole line of other well defined character- 
istics wliich we are certain are inherited? Unless 
we admit that life is universal, manifesting itself 
in myriads of forms, we cannot answer these ques- 
tions. 

Everything we do to improve ourselves will be 
inherited by our descendants. It should be our 
aim to hand down to them the life in us as pure as 
we have received it through our parents from the 
hands of God ; we should not defile this eternal 
stream as it passes through our bodies. We 
should cultivate it and expend upon it at least as 
much care as we do upon the life showing itself 
through a flower or an animal. 

Besides the training of the intellectual faculties 
to the realization of social necessities and the 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 151 

proper appreciation of the values of life in order 
to induce man to perform his duties to himself 
and his feilowmen, which may be called its positive 
function, ethics has also another purpose, namely, 
to restrain the instincts, passions and desires. 
These passions and desires are the outgrowth of the 
primal faculties of the cells composing the human 
body, and were man to live isolated, they would 
be of great value in the preservation of life. But 
they are also destructive, and communal living is 
to counteract their destructiveness and to limit 
their exercise. Communal life affords greater 
protection through cooperation ; the division of 
work precludes the necessity of individual hoarding 
up of supplies. Anger and fear become useless, 
nay, a menace to a community. The society as a 
whole guarantees to everyone his life and, by its 
executive organization, protects it. It is the pur- 
pose of ethics to impress upon everyone this car- 
dinal principle. It teaches man to restrain his 
natural impulse to revenge, because such an act 
would be subversive of the social aims, the realiza- 
tion of which will produce better security to the 
individual than private vengeance. It teaches 
man that wanton destruction of life is a crime 
against nature. It points out to him that the so- 
cial organization makes his fears groundless and 
that it will protect him better than he can do it 
himself. So far as the protection of life is con- 
cerned our institutions are almost perfect. Acts 
of violence due to hatred, anger or fear are the 



152 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

exceptions, and from them life is fairly secure. 
But in our institution of private property we have 
an incentive to greed rather than a restriction 
upon it. The great moral struggle is between the 
natural instinct to hoard in order to provide 
against future want and its limitation within the 
proper bounds, because social life should preclude 
this need. In the miser, in whom this instinct is 
most strongly developed ; we see to what extent it 
can be carried. The abolition of poverty has been 
the great problem of mankind. Of course there 
could be no poverty if there were no private prop- 
erty, as there would be no occasion for the in- 
dividual greed to be sharpened and developed. 
Everyone would desire only as much as he needed 
and would concede the same to everyone else. If 
he knew that he could not get anything within his 
individual control he would have no desire to do 
so. And if a man's desire for possession were 
chastened there would be no injustice, for there 
would be no motive for it ; there would be no op- 
pression of others ; there would be no worry about 
the future ; there would not be the millions of 
crimes against the property of others ; there would 
not be that strenuous chase after wealth which is 
the cause of all the misery and conflict in this 
world, from the petty thieving on the street to the 
gigantic and organized slaughter on the battle 
fields. Because of the existence of this institu- 
tion ethical teaching has been handicapped instead 
of assisted by the social living. And it is a handi- 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 153 

cap which it has not been able to overcome for 
thousands of years. All the denunciations of the 
prophets, all the thunders of Jove had little ef- 
fect on man ; private property feeds the flames of 
primal greed and nullifies all these efforts. This 
greed is very necessary to the single cell and even 
to the organized individual, because they both de- 
pend upon their own exertions. Society was es- 
tablished to obviate the necessity of giving it free 
rein, but it is trying to do so in a manner not 
only not suitable but positively stimulating to it. 
The act of a cell distilling a few drops of oil and 
keeping it within its own cell wall for future use 
is essentially the same as the heartless efforts of a 
Croesus to amass great wealth; the latter is but 
the intensification of the former. And in this ef- 
fort he is assisted by society, which by its protec- 
tion of property rights restrains everybody from 
interfering with it, even though he acquired them 
by unjust means. And private property threw 
another burden upon society by the restriction it 
placed upon the reproductive faculty. Society 
alone does not need the marriage institution, but 
private property places a limitation on parent- 
hood with its train of strict rules of morality. 
As long as the one remains, the other will have to 
remain. Present social needs requiring the mar- 
riage institution, it is for ethics to try to curb the 
parental instinct. 

We should do this in order to develop our beings 
symmetrically. Religion took upon itself this 



154 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

task. While science and philosophy are trying to 
solve the great riddle of life by studying the out- 
ward world, religion looks principally to man's 
heart for its solution, to the everyday experiences 
and expressions of the emotions and sentiments. 
This work is represented by the cultivation of the 
three virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. But 
to progress we need a change of base. Faith is 
reactionary, it depends on the work of others, it 
relies on the past. In effect it claims that man has 
reached perfection, that he knows all he can know. 
Its claim for absolute verity is supernatural reve- 
lation through its Moseses, Jesuses, Mohammeds, 
Buddhas and others, truly great personalities in 
their days, who had natural visions far ahead of 
their days, who saw more clearly, but who were not 
by any means infallible. Their superior abilities 
were able to grasp the facts of life better than the 
masses. They were the pathfinders to groping 
humanity, the leaders of men, but they were lim- 
ited by the conditions under which they lived. 
Their knowledge of the universe was limited by the 
mental development of their ages and their moral 
teachings were adapted to the moral capacities of 
the people among whom they lived. To claim 
infallibility for them means the chaining of the 
human mind, the limiting of the human heart. It 
means rest ; and there is no rest in nature. Faith, 
then, should be supplanted by increasing knowl- 
edge of ourselves and our social relations, of our 
destiny. Instead of having faith in the words of 



EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS 155 

others we should cultivate faith in our own intel- 
lects ; we should have faith in the capacity of the 
human mind to discover truth ; we should have 
faith in its progress and growth. Hope, which is 
the expectation of a reward as an inducement to 
right living, is really useless, and should be re- 
placed by patience. " The mills of the Gods 
grind slowly " ; we should have patience to await 
the realization of our ideals, and do everything in 
our power to advance their cause. Patient work 
should be our motto. Charity is all-embracing 
and eternal, and should be included in every code. 
Honor, patience and charity should be the three 
guiding stars of our earthly pilgrimage. Honor 
undefiled, patience unswerving and charity all- 
comprehending will firmly establish the " kingdom 
of God " on this earth, or, in the word of the ra- 
tionalist, the millennium. 



CHAPTER V 

OUR METRIC SYSTEM 

It is the underlying principle and the advantage 
of the metric system that all the standards of 
quantitative measurement are reducible to one, the 
meter. It is a sad fact, and the evil of our day, 
that we reduce all the values of life to one stand- 
ard, the dollar. We measure success, commerce, 
labor, motherhood, home and happiness by the 
dollar standard: the number of dollars they bring 
or the number of dollars that can be spent on 
them. The reason for it is that we have not 
learned to curb our desires and that our institu- 
tion of private property is continually feeding 
them. Of course, property in itself is not an evil ; 
it is the way we look at it and our disposition 
toward it that brings on all the evil attributed to 
it. 

I. THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY 

There cannot be much doubt that man lived in 

groups or herds even before his intellect developed, 

merely from the instinct of self-preservation, just 

as we see other animals living in herds. Then he 

was guided wholly by his instincts, and laws or 
156 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 157 

rules of conduct had no place in such a commu- 
nity, because these presuppose the knowledge of 
the social relations. Then he was not a responsi- 
ble and, therefore, not a moral being. His instinct 
of self-preservation was the sole bond of union, 
and he did not exercise his full natural liberty only 
from the sense necessity or submitted only to the 
brute force of some individual leader. Responsi- 
bility and moral quality attached to his acts only 
after he was able to comprehend those relations. 
It was then that evil entered into the world ; it was 
then that law was born. When it was in point of 
time is immaterial. Probably this comprehension 
dawned upon him gradually in the course of his 
evolution. Even within historical times the prog- 
ress was very slow. The rock-bottom principle, 
social responsibility as the basis of civil govern- 
ment, was not proclaimed to the world until the 
time of the Declaration of Independence, when the 
founders of this Republic declared it to be a self- 
evident truth that governments derive their just 
powers from the consent of the governed. The 
theory of government cannot be reduced to a sim- 
pler formula as long as man will need restraints to 
make him conform all his acts to the common wel- 
fare, which will not be until the necessity for co- 
operation will have become a fixed habit of 
thought, not until men will have curbed their de- 
sires within the limits of necessity, and not until 
they will be guided solely by the sense of honor 
and personal responsibility. Till then govern- 



158 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

merits and moral codes will be necessary to re- 
strain men from exercising their natural freedom ; 
and democracy, founded on the consent of the gov- 
erned, is the most just and the only natural form 
of government. It was only after man ate of the 
tree of knowledge that he could be condemned for 
acts contrary to the relations under which he lived. 
Animals, living in communities from instinct, know 
no personal property rights ; in fact, they know 
no rights whatever; and we see man emerging out 
of the darkness of prehistoric times living in vil- 
lage communities under a patriarchal form of 
government in which the ownership of property 
was communal. Obedience to laws was then a 
mixture of instinct and personal or moral re- 
sponsibility. These village communities, so far 
as we know, were in existence almost everywhere. 
In every community the source of supplies must 
be regulated to prevent continuous strife, which 
would be destructive of communal life. In those 
days men did not control personally and abso- 
lutely the source of supplies or any portion of it; 
they did not own anything personally. The land 
belonged to the entire community and in many 
cases was divided, after agriculture was developed, 
either by some individual or by a council of elders, 
even as it is now done in some parts of Russia. 
But this state changed gradually until our present 
institution of sacred property rights grew up. 
Not understanding fully the social relations and 
the means whereby the social aims can be best at- 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 159 

tained, men gave way to their natural desires to 
hoard property for their exclusive use in order 
to assure to themselves the satisfaction of their 
future wants. Not realizing the necessity and the 
great advantages of cooperation and its justice in 
a social organization, they tried to gain this assur- 
ance by accumulating property not needed for 
present enjoyment, and to avoid working for it. 
Hoarding the things needed is a natural instinct 
which we see even in other animals ; but this in- 
stinct should be controlled by the proper compre- 
hension of the benefits of cooperation. Work is 
not as agreeable as leisure, and men utilized all 
kinds of expedients, from brute force to playing 
upon the noblest human sentiments, to make oth- 
ers work for them. And this is still going on. 
Every one of us is a monopolist at heart ; for, 
after all, the right of private property is nothing 
but a restraint upon everybody from interfering 
with the use and control of something one of us 
claims for himself, enforced by the government of 
the state. The cupidity of some to see within this 
charmed circle as much as possible, whether they 
actually need it or not and irrespective of how it 
gets there, is at the root of all the injustice, op- 
pression, poverty and misery that we see. For- 
merly men even enslaved others, considering them 
no better than beasts, to amass property without 
any exertion on their part ; it took a struggle last- 
ing for many centuries to induce men even par- 
tially to admit that everybody ought to work, and, 



160 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

at that, with most of us it is but a theory which we 
are not inclined to put into practice. Most of 
us are ready to make use of any subterfuge to 
avoid what we still consider a curse imposed by the 
Almighty. The retention of this foolish myth has 
a very powerful influence, in most cases uncon- 
scious, upon the minds of very many. 

II. DOLLAR-IZED SUCCESS 

We strive and struggle, we cheat and we lie, we 
oppress and murder our fellowmen, we deface the 
imprint of the Infinite on our souls in order that 
we may be able to bedeck the few million cells that 
compose our bodies with crystallized charcoal or 
clay or the effluvia of an oyster, just because they 
reflect or refract the light; in order to hang on 
them fabrics made of the off'al of caterpillars, just 
because they shine ; in order to steep our bodies in 
poison that kills, just because they tickle the pal- 
ate, while countless microscopic cells, the half- 
brothers of those that constitute our bodies, wrig- 
gle contentedly and happily in the mud puddle 
by the wayside. And if we can do all these noble 
and glorious things, we call it success. But, it 
will be objected, we surely do not want to live in 
a mud puddle. Positively not ; man was destined 
for even better things than what is called success. 
But is yonder man a better man because of the 
large diamond glittering in his shirt front, which 
he purchased with the money made by selling poi- 
sons to his weak-willed brothers and deprived 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 161 

thereby his little ones of the necessaries of life? 
Is yonder grand dame a better woman because 
there hangs from her neck a rope of pearls and 
her body is covered with costly silks, bought by 
her husband with the blood money wrung out of 
the unfortunate keepers of disreputable houses be- 
longing to him? Are yonder children better chil- 
dren because they are rolling about in a luxurious 
limousine, attended by flunkies, which they can en- 
joy only because their father controls a great sur- 
plus of the production of thousands of men labor- 
ing in the bowels of the earth, which could be put 
to better use in supplying their families with 
proper living conditions, to which surplus they are 
better entitled than the fathers of those pampered 
children ? 

What, then, is success? Every man is by na- 
ture entitled to all that he needs to preserve the 
life of the cells which compose his body, under the 
most favorable conditions, and to develop them 
into the highest possible state of efficiency. In 
fact, that is his natural duty ; that is the reason 
why he is a man, endowed with numerous faculties, 
even with an intellect. To preserve himself and 
to have the opportunity of improving himself is 
his " inalienable right of life." He is entitled to 
that, but to nothing more. Were he to live iso- 
lated, he could not enjoy the benefits and advan- 
tages of cooperation, which means the fruits of 
the work of others, so that, being left to his own 
resources, he could not fulfill his natural duty to 



162 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

the same extent. He lives in society, whose aim is 
to assure to him those advantages. It naturally 
follows that every man must contribute his share 
to the necessary work; the dullest mind can com- 
prehend, and common sense dictates, that no one 
should expect to get the benefits of the work of 
others unless they in turn get some benefit of his 
work. Whoever does no work of any kind for the 
benefit of the community is of no use to it. Here 
is where our reason is befuddled by the dollar; we 
fondly imagine that by giving others a few dollars 
for the work they do, we give them all they are en- 
titled to in return, and that thereby we satisfy 
the requirements of common sense justice and con- 
tribute something to the general stock. Coopera- 
tion and private wealth, beyond what would be the 
pro rata share of everyone, are contradictory 
terms ; and, consequently, the man who lives solely 
from his money, without ever having worked for it, 
especially if he inherited it, has, in fact, no right 
to claim the benefits of social life. He is beyond 
its pale. Everyone ought to understand and to 
appreciate the necessity of work for the common 
good and be ever ready to do it. Whosoever has 
fitted himself to do his allotted work to the limit 
of his natural capacities, and does it, has made 
a success of his life. This is his natural and so- 
cial destiny. A good street sweeper is a success, 
while a bad mayor is a failure, irrespective of how 
many dollars each can control. The one performs 
the noble work of sanitation while the latter is a 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 163 

dangerous sore on the body politic, whose poten- 
tiality for evil and corruption is the greater be- 
cause of the exalted position he occupies. 

To correct this false notion of success it is first 
of all necessary to realize the necessity of work 
and its nobility. If we do realize this, we shall 
not scramble so wildly for the dollars in order to 
supply our wants without having to work for 
them. That is the chief reason why men are so 
much after wealth: to avoid working for a living. 
But as this is contrary to the natural and eco- 
nomic laws, it brings evil in its wake. By living in 
society we have distributed work, but have not 
abolished it: it must be done, and it should be ap- 
portioned among all. Work does not include only 
manual labor, for mental work is just as necessary 
for the attainment of the social aims. Again, we 
should turn to the human body for an example of 
a perfect economic organization. Every cell per- 
forms its allotted work and receives what it needs 
in return. All the cells do not do the same work, 
for then there would be little benefit in cooperation 
and they might just as well have stayed in single 
blessedness, depending entirely upon their single 
exertions. If the cells, say, of the heart accumu- 
late more fat than they should, — and the fat rep- 
resents the surplus production over immediate 
needs in the economy of the body, — a condition is 
created called fatty degeneration, which is danger- 
ous to the entire community. The accumulation 
of wealth under the control of a few individuals 



164 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

is a similar social disease, and a dangerous evil. 
The cells of the heart, not knowing their relations 
to the other cells, are not accountable, nor can we 
suppose that they act so greedily of their own 
perverted desires ; but with man it is different. 
He has an intellect to understand his relations 
and to prevent the establishment of such an un- 
healthy condition ; if he act contrary to what he 
knows, or should know, is right, he not only per- 
petrates a crime upon the rest of the society but, 
indirectly, against his own nature as well ; for he 
thereby perverts to improper use his natural fac- 
ulties, defeats the purpose for which he leads a 
social life, and may, in the end, bring ruin upon 
himself also. It will be objected, " I am not do- 
ing this so much for the gratification of my own 
desires, I am not all selfishness, as to assure my fu- 
ture, but mainly that of my children." Theoret- 
ically that is a good answer ; but what kind of a 
future do you want to assure to your children.'' 
That is the test. Is it a life of useless leisure or 
serviceable work? If the former, you are teach- 
ing them to live, as you do, contrary to their na- 
tures ; you are not only not training them to curb 
their desires within the limits of necessity, in order 
to make them contented and happy, but you are 
inordinately sharpening these and inspiring in 
them ambitions to continue the abnormal condi- 
tions which you have created for yourself. Good 
character is a better inheritance than dollars. 
Your children should be taught the values of life 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 165 

and of success as measured' by the standard of 
service rather than of the dollar, which brings lei- 
sure and selfish gratification of every whim ; social 
equality, rather than class distinction according 
to the dollar standard. Why should your chil- 
dren be entitled — and they are not — to get the 
benefits of social life at the expense of the children 
of others? If they do, somebody else's children 
will have to surrender to your children their sur- 
plus production, or even be in want of what is their 
natural due. To enable your orphans to be at- 
tended by servants, you drive somebody else's 
orphans into the streets, or you contribute a little 
to build an orphan asylum for them. What mag- 
nanimity ! That your son may have to cudgel his 
brains to find out how to kill precious time and 
waste his life, somebody else's son, whose father, 
perchance, lost his life in enriching you, must 
toil in your factory, doing work beyond his 
strength and sapping his vitality. That your 
pampered daughter may be able to satisfy her 
whims, somebody else's daughter, in desperation* 
may be driven to sell her body and soul and end 
her life in some slimy river. And that you call 
success ! The common stock is not infinite ; the 
sources of supply are limited; if you have more 
than you need, somebody must suffer want. 

From this notion of success there naturally flows 
a wrong conception of man's social position. The 
true standard is usefulness to society, but we have 
made the dollar the standard. Democracy can 



166 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

subsist only where work is the index to man's so- 
cial position. Work is the noblest badge of dis- 
tinction that a man can carry. We shout for de- 
mocracy and bow our knees before a heap of dol- 
lars. 

It will be objected that if this be true, then a full 
stomach is the measure of success, which would 
be lowering man to the level of unreasoning ani- 
mals. That is a very narrow view and an unwar- 
ranted conclusion, ultimately traceable to the false 
conception of the motives for doing good, personal 
reward. Man exists to preserve active the uni- 
versal life principle. To do this more efficiently 
he lives in society whose true aim is not the wel- 
fare of the whole but of every individual. There 
is a material difference between the two. If mil- 
lions of individuals in a society suffer want and 
misery, that community is a failure, no matter how 
powerful or prosperous as a whole it may appear. 
Placing the welfare of the state above that of the 
individuals caused the European war. There the 
interests of the individual are swallowed up in the 
interests of the whole: the individual is disre- 
garded. Everything is for the nation. That is 
a false conception of patriotism and of the pur- 
pose of government. What if either side shall 
win a " glorious victory " at the expense of mil- 
lions of lives, millions of broken hearts, of untold 
wealth, which will mortgage the production of fu- 
ture generations? The winning nations as a 
whole will then possibly be in a better political 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 167 

position, but what of the living conditions of their 
future citizens, who will have to toil and labor not 
only to supply their needs but also to pay for the 
orgy in which their fathers indulged? They are 
still paying for past wars ; when will they pay for 
this one? The true purpose of society is to pro- 
vide and to assure to everyone the best possible 
living conditions, to preserve the life of every in- 
dividual. That is why a man is, — just to be. 
Annihilation, if it were possible, would be the 
greatest evil. And to be, we must eat. And what 
does the Croesus get out of his wealth? In that, 
being, lies man's destiny ; it means, in a sense, to 
collaborate with God in the universe for all eter- 
nity. If we did not preserve our lives, the most 
efficient form of the manifestation of the universal 
life force, for the production of which untold ages 
of patient work have been expended, v/ould become 
extinct ; and that we could almost call a failure of 
the Infinite. 

On the other hand, is it more ennobling to ac- 
cumulate dollars, even if it is accomplished with- 
out depriving others of their just dues? But, it 
will be answered, dollars will enable man to enjoy 
the higher pleasures of life, to cultivate his mind, 
to foster literature, to promote art, to alleviate 
the sufferings of others, to spread culture and edu- 
cation. That this would not constitute a justi- 
fication for the unjust acquisition of great wealth 
need not be discussed. But admitting even that a 
man can amass great wealth without detriment to 



168 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

others, although that is an absurdity, when will 
the pursuit of the dollar allow him any leisure to 
cultivate his mind, except to learn how to acquire 
more dollars? Such a man, having developed his 
mind along wrong lines and having acquired a 
habit of thinking of everything in terms of dollars, 
will not be able to divest himself of that habit 
when he has hoarded up the dollars. As to foster- 
ing literature and promoting art, great wealth is 
a detriment, for the measuring of success by the 
dollar has dollar-ized these also. Nowadays, dol- 
lar success, or any other cheap notoriety, is the 
main qualification for a literary career, because it 
helps to bring dollars to the publishers. A few 
wealthy men have been promoting literature : they 
had books written, paid for the work and pub- 
lished them under their own names. If there 
would not be great concentration of wealth under 
the control of a few, there Avould be no poverty 
or misery, and, therefore, no field for the exercise 
of the " charitable " instincts of the wealthy. 
Their affluence is at the expense of others. The 
amount contributed by the wealthy to spread edu- 
cation and culture is comparatively small and neg- 
ligible : the public school system, the real source of 
education, is supported by the masses of the peo- 
ple, and if they were better able to contribute, 
because of a more even distribution of wealth, it 
would be even better. 

It will be contended that were it not for the 
commercial giants, who by their genius and energy 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 169 

developed the natural resources of the country, 
our material progress would not have been as 
rapid and that the acquisition of great wealth by 
them was but an incident to their labors and suc- 
cess. Had their motives been single and unself- 
ish, the advancement of the public good, they 
might be considered as great benefactors, but had 
they been actuated by such a noble purpose, they 
would not have used oppressive means, they would 
not have been ruthless and unjust, which alone en- 
abled them to become very wealthy. Their acqui- 
sition of great fortunes is not a necessary incident, 
for they could not have amassed them had they 
distributed justly the profits of their enterprises 
among those who collaborated with them. Mil- 
lions have contributed their work to the success of 
these few and they are so wealthy simply because 
they were unjust. They, themselves, of their own 
exertions, could not have accomplished what they 
did ; they needed the cooperation of others, who 
ought to have shared proportionally in the prod- 
uce. They deserve credit and just returns for 
promoting these enterprises and for their energy 
in maintaining them, but no more ; and that does 
not include all the surplus products. Besides, 
their natural capacities were great factors in their 
success, and these were not given to them by na- 
ture to exploit others. These were a sacred trust 
to advance the welfare of all. For these they do 
not deserve special compensation, nor is it a merit 
of theirs. What they have they got through their 



170 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

workmen. There is no doubt that a community 
owes a debt to those who by their exertions 
brought prosperity to it, but their reward should 
not be to the detriment of others. Individuality 
and personal ambition ought to be encouraged 
and stimulated, for they are of great advantage 
to the public; and if we have not as yet attained 
the heights of idealism, unselfish service, and re- 
ward is still craved, it should not be measured by 
dollars alone. If there be men who have more 
than they can possibly use and if there be others 
who suffer want, and there are institutions that 
produce such conditions, they are wrong; senti- 
ments which consider the accumulation of wealth 
under such conditions as success uphold such insti- 
tutions. As long as such sentiments persist, the 
social problems cannot be satisfactorily solved and 
social evils eradicated. 

III. DOLLAR-IZED COMMERCE AND 
INDUSTRY 

Commerce is not an evil: it is an efficient means 
of carrying out the aims of social life, the welfare 
of all the individuals. There is no reason why we 
should not utilize for the welfare of humanity the 
fruits of genius ; why we should not make our 
servant the chained lightning; why we should not 
make captive the heat of the sun ; why the inclem- 
ency of the weather and the rigours of climate 
should not be moderated ; why the local barren- 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 171 

ness of the soil should not be compensated by the 
free interchange of its fruits ; why our knowledge 
of the laws of nature should not be used to abol- 
ish distance and unite all mankind into one family. 
Commerce is the means of effectuating coopera- 
tion ; it is not an evil : only its abuse is. It would 
be just as reasonable to say that the circulation 
of the blood is an evil because a jelly-fish can get 
along without it. But nowadays commerce is 
prostituted to the perverted conception of suc- 
cess, the acquisition of dollars by individuals. 
The means is made the end. The Roman patri- 
cians amassed wealth by wars, rapine and organ- 
ized robbery, in which the masses bled and died 
for a small pittance, or artificially stimulated lust 
for what they considered glory, and from the la- 
bors of slaves who could not call their lives their 
own ; the feudal barons lived in leisure and luxury 
on the wealth acquired through royal favoritism 
and the sweat of the brows of their tenants whose 
bodies and souls they repressed and who could not 
lay claim to their graves ; nowadays the captains 
of industry, so-called, roll in wealth produced by 
laborers who get but an infinitesimal portion of 
their own products. We have improved upon the 
old methods of the patricians and the barons. 
They owned the freedom of their slaves and ten- 
ants ; our laborers have liberty, the power of lo- 
comotion and the blessed privilege of discharging 
themselves whenever they please, and starve. It 



172 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

was in the interest of the slave holders to keep 
their slaves in good bodily condition and to take 
care of them ; our captains of industry had this 
responsibility taken off their shoulders : the slaves 
were freed. Blessed liberty ! Happy conditions ! 
We have placed the sources of wealth in the hands 
of a few men who can use them for their exclusive 
advantage. Our beneficent commercial giants al- 
low the laborers to keep their wages for a while, 
only to take them back lest they spoil. Truly, 
labor should be grateful for being allowed this 
great consolation. But there is no use pointing 
out any external object and calling it the root of 
evil ; the evils lie in our cupidity, in our insatiable 
ambition to be considered successful men by show- 
ing that we control a great many dollars. It is 
our false standards of the values of life that cor- 
rupt everything. It is the prostitution of com- 
merce to private greed that stains scarlet every 
useful thing we touch, that produces poverty and 
all its accompanying evils. And what do people 
gain by amassing such great wealth, such a great 
number of dollars.'' They can thereby only sup- 
ply the necessary food and favorable surround- 
ings for a few millions of cells that compose their 
bodies : that and nothing more. Beyond that the 
value of wealth is but in man's mental attitude 
towards it, in his mode of thinking about it. If 
some control more than that, it is waste. The aim 
of commerce is not to enrich individuals but to 
make the living conditions of all favorable. 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 173 

IV. DOLLAR-IZED LABOR 

We have dollar-ized labor. This seems a 
strange statement, but it is not. All that labor- 
ers are working for nowadays is to get so many 
dollars, the more the better. But, it will be ob- 
jected, if others are after dollars, why should not 
the laborer ; he is more entitled to them than any- 
body else. True; but that is no justification, be- 
cause it is not a justification for the others. 

Modern inventions have made the large and 
powerful industrial enterprises and commercial or- 
ganizations a necessity ; they have put the small 
tradesman, who was both a capitalist and a la- 
borer, and the small merchant out of business. 
Quick transportation facilities and machinery 
have increased productiveness and abolished 
merely local competition. In the olden days the 
tradesmen found a market for their limited pro- 
duction near home and they did not need to meet 
competition from distant places, where conditions 
might be more favorable to cheaper production. 
With modern machinery, production on a large 
scale is more profitable and it must seek distant 
markets. All this necessitated the concentration 
of capital and the building up of cities with large 
populations of workingmen. But neither rapid 
transportation nor machinery, nor even such large 
enterprises, are evils. They made impossible 
such famines as were endured in the past, and as 
are endured even to-day by uncivilized nations, 



174 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

and allow us to enjoy things which could not be 
even obtained in the olden days. Machinery has 
done away with a great deal of the drudgery of 
work and, if things were properly adjusted, all 
could enjoy greater comforts and, what is more 
important, greater assurance of the future. At 
that, civilized nations live under far better condi- 
tions than they did in the past and far better 
than those enjoyed by savages. The necessary 
capital for carrying on these enterprises is beyond 
the capacity of any single individual. When 
these methods began, it was possible for few indi- 
viduals to amass great fortunes because of the tre- 
mendous profits, which they did not share with 
their workingmen who produced them; they were 
able to extend greatly their enterprises and to 
drive out of the field the old-fashioned tradesmen. 
But even these reached their limits and the com- 
mercial corporation was born. The united capital 
of more persons became a necessity. The large 
manufacturing and mercantile establishments 
drove out the old-fashioned tradesmen and thereby 
abolished the independent, prosperous middle 
class, the existence of which, to preserve healthy 
economic conditions, is deemed indispensable by 
all authorities on political economy. There re- 
main now but the large employer and the large, 
dependent working class. It enables these gigan- 
tic concerns to control both the sources of supply 
and the market. In the days of small tradesmen, 
they, as a class, that is, the producers themselves, 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 175 

controlled their products and competition kept 
down the prices ; now the producers have no word 
in the disposition of their products and the prices 
are regulated by men who did nothing towards 
their production but who, nevertheless, want the 
greatest portion of the profits. In the olden days 
a workman's success depended upon his individual 
skill, upon his honesty and industry. The im- 
provement of his product was his ambition, be- 
cause of the assurance it held for him of the fu- 
ture. Nowadays the workman is but a cog in the 
machinery, so that it is not to be wondered that 
his aim is only to get higher wages. He takes 
little interest in his work and has no incentives. 
If he keeps up his ambition and interest he soon 
rises above his class ; he ceases to be a workman 
when his wealth makes it unnecessary to work, and 
he, too, may become but a useless adjunct. But 
speaking dispassionately, large corporations are 
not only a necessity but a blessing to humanity, 
and in them lies the salvation of the future. The 
days of the large private owner are gone. Be- 
cause these enterprises are incorporated, with 
great quantities of stock on the market, the labor- 
ing classes should wake up to their great oppor- 
tunity by buying up this stock to regain the con- 
trol of their production which they had in the 
olden daj^s. If they did that, there could be no 
talk of unearned increment and other fanciful the- 
ories. This is a practical way of meeting altered 
conditions without violence, utilizing the means 



176 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

ready at hand. Social institutions are contin- 
ually evolving by slow processes ; revolutions, 
whether bloody or not, if violent, bring misery in 
their wake. 

THE PRACTICAL REMEDY 

That concentrated capital and a large class of 
dependent workingmen is not a healthy condition 
is a patent fact. All kinds of remedies are advo- 
cated: government ownership, communal owner- 
ship, and so on. All are revolutionary and im- 
practical, while there is a practical remedy at 
hand, to be utilized without injury to anyone. 
Communal ownership has its disadvantages be- 
cause it kills individuality and ambition, which are 
the expressions of the natural instinct to develop 
and to grow ; and, besides, it would require a per- 
fect adjustment of the desires to necessity, an al- 
most unattainable ideal. On the other hand, pri- 
vate ownership of property and democracy arc 
incompatible terms, because private ownership de- 
velops class distinction founded on wealth and 
feeds the natural desires for possession, which are 
contrary to the principles of democracy, which 
rest on cooperation. In the corporate ownership 
of property we have a happy medium ; it preserves 
individuality and, if controlled by the working- 
men, it would in time abolish great individual 
wealth. Inherited wealth has no staying quali- 
ties : it is easily dissipated. What complicated 
legal devices had to be invented to keep it intact 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 177 

in countries where nobility is in existence? Cor- 
porate ownership would reestablish the working- 
man in his former position of controlling his own 
products. If the workingmen invested their sav- 
ings, no matter how small they are, in the stocks 
of corporations by which they are employed, they 
would in time acquire a voice in their management 
and even gain control. It would give them the 
unearned increment, of which term they are so 
fond. Is not corporate ownership really limited 
communal ownership.? 

Such a movement could be best inaugurated by 
the labor organizations. Take, for example, the 
different classes of railroad employees: the con- 
ductors, brakemen, firemen, and so forth. They 
are all well organized ; their number with any com- 
pany is great ; and there is plenty of railroad 
stock on the market, quite a few of them good 
dividend payers. Why could not each one con- 
tribute a certain amount each month for buying 
stock in his company .-^ Or each one could buy it 
in his own name. The different brotherhoods 
should control the voting of this stock at the 
stockholders' meetings, which could be done by 
passing by-laws requiring every member to sign his 
proxy to some one chosen by the brotherhood. If 
each employee bought only one share of stock a 
year, their pooled strength would be felt in a very 
short time. Where the law allows cumulative vot- 
ing for the election of the board of directors, the 
employees' pool could elect a member to the board 



178 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

of directors within a couple of years. Or they 
could incorporate a holding company, on the plan 
of a Building and Loan Association, each member 
buying a certain number of shares, for which he 
would pay in monthly installments, the accumu- 
lated money being applied to the purchase of the 
railroad stock and the dividends distributed among 
the shareholders in the holding company. Of 
course this would not be a work of one day or of 
one year, not even of ten years ; but no lasting 
good can be accomplished without patient work 
and perseverance. No institution that grew up 
gradually can be abolished or changed by revolu- 
tionary methods without causing more injury than 
the reform might produce benefits. This might 
even be attended with some loss at the beginning; 
but are not the railroad employees spending great 
sums on such matters as lobbying in legislatures 
to make transportation more expensive, on strikes 
to raise wages, which in the end must be paid by 
other workingmen and themselves, on attempts to 
lower hours of employment, which also increases 
the cost of transportation? If the stock is a divi- 
dend payer it would be but an investment ; if not, 
it would be a temporary sacrifice for their cause. 
If all the millions that have been expended by the 
unions on things which really did not benefit their 
members but, on the contrary, were injurious both 
to them and to the industries, many large enter- 
prises would be now in the hands of the laboring 
classes. 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 179 

But it will be objected that such a movement 
could be killed at the very beginning by stock gam- 
blers ; that all kinds of tricks would be employed 
by them to ruin the laboring man. First of all, 
in most cases the stock gamblers have no connec- 
tion with the management of the industries, and 
the operators themselves would hardly oppose 
very seriously such a movement. It would be very 
surprising if they would not actually encourage 
it ; for it would be to their own advantage to have 
the laboring men cooperate with them instead of 
opposing them. Wide-awake business men to-day 
are trying to interest their workingmen in their 
companies. Then, a bona fide holder of stock for 
investment, and in this case for a specific purpose, 
cannot be seriously affected or easily scared away 
by stock market manipulations. Market quota- 
tions are not the infallible signs of the value of a 
stock. Furthermore, if the stock of any company 
were gradually absorbed by the workingmen to 
gain control, there soon would be little of it on the 
market for the gamblers to manipulate ; so that it 
would not be an altogether idle dream to suppose 
that such a movement might even abolish the stock 
gambling evil. Finally, to wreck the workingmen 
the managers would also wreck themselves, for they 
are vitally interested in their enterprises, more so 
than the workingmen would be in the beginning. 
And then, in spite of what is said against them, 
the courts would help out in cases of great injus- 
tice. Even as the law stands now, the working- 



180 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

men as stockholders would have a far better stand- 
ing in court than they have as strikers. The cap- 
ital that is accumulated by the workingmen in the 
savings banks and handled by a few men is enor- 
mous ; if, instead, it were invested by them in com- 
mercial and manufacturing enterprises it would 
remain within their own control. As against this 
potential capital the individual investments by the 
wealthy men are really small. We talk about the 
money trust ; whose money do the money barons 
handle? Their own? A good portion of it be- 
longs to the very men who rail against the capital- 
ists as a class. Besides, laws passed recently, and 
which no doubt will be passed in the future, will 
make such raw deals as have been perpetrated in 
the past impossible in the future. Over-capital- 
ization, watering of stocks, overburdening with 
fixed debts, can and will be prevented in the fu- 
ture; and, with the laboring classes vitally inter- 
ested in such regulative legislation, more stringent 
laws protecting the stockholders could be easily 
passed. 

Another objection may be heard, — that the 
labor representatives on the board of directors 
would be corrupted and betray the men. If labor 
cannot trust anybody, or is afraid of being able to 
find somebody reliable enough to be entrusted with 
its interests, then its cause is hopeless. Of course, 
this would not bring about the millennium, for that 
will or can be reached only after all men will have 
fully realized their positions and will do their 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 181 

duties from a sense of responsibility only. There 
would, no doubt, be abuses, as there are abuses in 
all organizations under popular management. 
We are making a sorry mess of the administration 
of our political affairs, yet no one, on that ac- 
count, would dare to advise our return to absolut- 
ism. This is not an impractical dream: it can be 
done unless we have lost all faith in human nature. 
We hope for better things in our political situa- 
tion and, undoubtedly, our hopes will be realized, 
— if not fully, at least partially. Man really 
never goes permanently backward ; he may stop in 
his course for a short time, but his tendency is al- 
ways upwards, for growth and development, for 
improvement. In fact, he cannot go backward 
permanently if he wanted to. The law or princi- 
ple which governs his nature is inherently self- 
preserving and growing. Such a course would be 
the means of putting the manufacturing and com- 
mercial enterprise on the democratic basis and 
would harmonize them without political institu- 
tions : it would make them cooperative, which is the 
fundamental principle of democracy. 

Again it will be objected that this would tie 
down the workingman to one company and make a 
slave of him. Not any more than a man is tied 
down by owning his home or by his trade. If done 
thoroughly and in an organized way it would be 
the means of his liberation. The continually 
shifting employee is a thing of the past. If this 
were done by the labor unions and the stock held 



182 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

individually, by-laws could be passed for the ex- 
change of stock when changing employers ; if 
through a holding company, it would matter little 
the stock of which company the corporation owned. 
Viewed from the standpoint of the whole class, 
either method would give the workingmen a voice 
in, or even the control of, the companies for which 
they worked or, rather, which they owned; they 
would exercise their influence as a body for the 
amelioration of their condition. 

Besides giving the workingmen the control of 
their products, this would have other beneficial 
results. It would preserve individuality and per- 
sonal ambition, which the many new-fangled theo- 
ries of communal ownership would strangle. 
Every man could enjoy the benefits of his indus- 
try, ability and thrift. He would reap the full 
fruits of his work in proportion to his interest in 
it. Such distribution of capital would prevent its 
undue concentration in a few hands. It would 
give the workingman an object in life, — the suc- 
cess of the enterprises in which he would be inter- 
ested. It would raise liim above mere machine, 
working for so much fuel, in his case the dollar. 
Men would not have to worry so much about the 
future of their children, for their own work would 
assure to their descendants the means of a decent 
living, and it would depend altogether upon their 
exertions what that future would be. In the olden 
days, the tradesmen took interest and pride in 
their work because that meant better product, in- 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 183 

creased efficiency and therefore better returns ; 
they trained their children along the same lines 
and counted on their skill rather than on leaving 
them large heritages to keep them from suffering 
want. They instilled into their minds the love of 
work rather than of leisure and uselessness, and 
they were all independent men. Willingness to 
work is the only guarantee of independence. They 
had their guilds and the position of the members 
depended upon their abilities, their skill in their 
line of work ; there was a certain esprit de corps, 
which had the effect of developing their products. 
And, by the way, the modern business corporations 
had their beginning in those guilds. Nowadays a 
laborer is no better than a machine or a tool ; his 
success is measured by the number of dollars he 
can earn for his employer and the number of dol- 
lars he can squeeze out of him for himself. His 
employer has little interest in him beyond the dol- 
lars, and he has no further interest in his work : 
result, antagonism. The employer wants the most 
work for the smallest wages, and the laborer wants 
the highest wages for the least work. Both sides 
tried to gain their points by organized opposition, 
with indifferent results. Capital has strengthened 
thereby its hold upon the laborers and at the same 
time aroused strong resentment in them. The 
tendency of this situation is dangerous and the 
strain is fraught with great danger. Sentiment 
may be a very powerful disruptive force, and the 
longer it is restrained the stronger it waxes, and 



184 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

in this case its potentiality, because of the great 
number of subjects, is tremendous. The strained 
internal stress in a Prince Rupert drop is suffi- 
cient to shatter it into atoms upon the slightest 
scratch. Of course, the way things are, the work- 
ingman cannot be blamed for his lack of interest, 
for his returns are fixed by someone else. So he 
plods along from day to day, little better than the 
beasts of burden of his employer, with only this 
difference, — that the animals are directly sup- 
plied with food and shelter while he is given a few 
dollars instead to provide these himself. There is 
now no incentive for him to make an attempt to 
effectuate the underlying principle of social co- 
operation ; he is, in fact, not cooperating. Every- 
body for himself : this sharpens the primordial self- 
ish instincts, whose curbing for the better promo- 
tion of the individual welfare by cooperation is es- 
sential. Unless this selfish sentiment is combated 
vigorously, the breach will ever widen ; it is a dis- 
ruptive force, destructive of social order. 

Having no other interest in their work except 
the acquisition of the dollars, the workingmen con- 
sider work a curse, in which view they are 
strengthened by the Bible story of the fall of man. 
Work is a necessity ; this every one of us ought to 
realize. If we depended upon our single exertions, 
living isolated, we should have to do all kinds of 
work: work for which we are not fitted physically 
or lack the inclination, and we certainly could not 
supply ourselves with all the comforts which we 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 185 

can enjoy now. In spite of all the misery that 
there is, men are better situated because they lead 
a social life. We can safely say that, living iso- 
lated, those who would be best off would live about 
the same as our poorest laboring classes. Conse- 
quently, everyone ought to consider it his duty to 
contribute his share to the common stock, and sim- 
ply paying dollars in wages is not such a contribu- 
tion. We ought to take example from the cells 
in the human body : every one performs its allotted 
function and receives what it needs in return, 
equally with the others. Thus a healthy condi- 
tion is preserved. This is the equality of nature, 
which we wish to establish by law. But the law is 
powerless to change our dispositions ; the realiza- 
tion of the ideals of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence lies in moral development; the highest sanc- 
tion of the law is the willingness of the people to 
obey it. Obtaining control of their own products, 
the workingmen would be of great assistance in 
realizing those ideals, because it would be putting 
into practice the principle on which those ideals 
depend, cooperation. 

A VICIOUS CIRCLE 

Because of the way in which workingmen look 
upon their work, that is, merely as the means of 
getting so many dollars for it, they do everything 
in their power to have their wages raised. In this 
mad scramble for higher wages they lose sight 
completely of the cardinal fact that the higher 



186 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

wages they succeed in obtaining will have to come 
mostly from men of their own class, because work- 
ingmen, as a class, are the greatest consumers 
also. They are in overwhelming majority; the 
capitalists, that is, those who live solely from the 
money which they have invested, are compara- 
tively few, so that the workingmen consume the 
greatest portion of their own products. Every 
rise in the wages of one group increases the cost 
of their product, the greatest portion of which 
must ultimately be borne by the workingmen them- 
selves. Take the shoemakers and the tailors, for 
example. One thousand shoemakers, with modern 
appliances, will produce shoes far above their own 
needs ; some of this surplus will have to be used by 
the tailors, and the greatest portion by other 
workingmen. If the wages of the shoemakers are 
raised, the tailors will have to pay a part of the 
increase ; if the tailors get higher wages, the shoe- 
maker will have to pay a part of the increase, and 
the other workingmen will have to pay nearly all 
the rest of the increase of both. Where is the ad- 
vantage to the working class as a whole ? To two 
thousand tailors and shoemakers there are hardly 
two capitalists, so that their consumption of these 
two commodities is very small, and they, there- 
fore, pay a very small portion of the raise. Labor 
whirls around in a vicious circle. There is much 
complaint about the increasing cost of living, but 
labor loses sight of the fundamental fact that 
wages is the greatest cost in the production of any 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 187 

commodity, with the possible exception of raw 
farm products. High cost of living impels the 
workingmen to ask for another raise in wages, 
which in its turn will raise still higher the cost of 
living; and so on ad infinitum, until the camel's 
back will have to break. As a class they are con- 
tinually rifling their own pockets and are deluding 
themselves that they are thereby improving their 
living conditions. They are talking of the broth- 
erhood of the working class and at the same time 
they are gouging each other. They are declaim- 
ing against the grasping greed of the capitalists 
and the oppression practiced upon them, and fifty 
per cent, of it is their own work. The capitalists 
no doubt are grasping, but the difference between 
their cupidity and that of the laborers is not in 
the essence but only in the manner of satisfying it ; 
the former do it through profits and the latter 
through wages ; the laborers do it indirectly and 
the capitalists directly. The capitalists, however, 
are enriching themselves and thereby increasing 
their power, while the laborers are either at a 
standstill or are impoverishing each other. A 
workingman gets ten cents an hour more, the cap- 
italist pays a very small fraction of a cent, and 
the balance is paid by other workingmen, who in 
turn get it back by obtaining a rise in their wages. 
Besides, each such rise gives the capitalist an op- 
portunity to increase the percentage of his profits. 
A rich man invests his surplus capital in building 
tenement houses for the workingmen ; the men that 



188 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

build them increase their cost by getting higher 
wages ; and the tenants, possibly some of the very 
men who built them, will have to pay this in in- 
creased rental. We value production in dollars, 
while its real value is its usefulness. Big figures 
are not necessarily great wealth. If the working- 
men had their savings invested in the stocks of 
the companies for which they were working, they 
would take enough interest in their work and take 
a broader view of the situation ; they would realize 
the folly of ever demanding higher wages ; they 
would realize that it would mean only taking money 
out of one pocket and putting it into another. 
Under the present system it is difficult for them to 
see this, and, besides, they cannot be very seriously 
blamed for blindly following their selfish instincts 
in the hope that somehow or other they may be the 
gainers. When everybody is selfish it is suicidal 
to be generous. " Everybody for himself and the 
devil take the hindmost." 

THE LIFE INSURANCE EVIL 

Such an investment of the savings of the work- 
ing class in the companies for which they are 
working would mitigate another very grave eco- 
nomic and political menace, excessive life insur- 
ance. Seeing little assurance ahead of them, to 
satisfy the natural instinct of pro\ading for their 
offspring the laboring men insure their lives to the 
limit of their resources, sometimes even beyond 
them. A man's life nowadays is worth the insur- 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 189 

ance he carries. The concentration of money in 
the treasuries of the life insurance companies is 
assuming alarming proportions. That money is 
in the control of a few financiers, who must invest 
it somehow. In this way the workingmen are truly 
forging their own chains. By tying up their 
savings in life insurance they become absolutely 
dependent upon their employers, for they have 
nothing to tide them over periods of non-employ- 
ment. Hard times come and they are either in 
want or have to borrow on their policies, which de- 
feats the very purpose for which they were taken 
out, protection to their families. If the state- 
ments of the life insurance companies are true, 
and we have no reason to doubt it, that their sur- 
plus funds are growing at the rate at which they 
claim they do, it is easy to foresee that the time 
must come when they will have within their control 
all the surplus capital of the country. What 
then? What will be done with it.? What is done 
with it? The men in control of these companies, 
and there are no workingmen among them, use this 
money to promote diiferent enterprises from which 
they alone reap the full benefits ; and the working- 
men, who put a great portion of this capital into 
their hands, produce those profits and get only 
small wages in return, the surplus of which they 
put back into the hands of those very men. " But 
don't you wish to assure to your children their 
future? " Certainly, but not by giving those 
whom you call your oppressors the opportunity 



190 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

to oppress them also, or at any rate to make 
them dependent on them. It is shortsightedness. 
There is hardly a workingman that can carry 
enough life insurance to make his children inde- 
pendent for life, yet he does help to concentrate 
the money in the hands of the few. If a man lives 
long enough his premiums almost total or, espe- 
cially in cases of an old-line policy, may even ex- 
ceed the amount his family gets ; if he dies within 
a short time after taking out a policy, he gets 
something for nothing. In taking out a policy a 
man expects to beat another or only get his own 
money back ; he wants somebody else to contribute 
to the support of his family. That is the protec- 
tion he gets, for all the money, or at least the 
greatest part of it, comes out of the policy holders 
directly. But, you will say, the companies do not 
keep these funds in their own vaults ; they invest 
them and thus promote commerce. Just so; but 
why should the workingmen let the companies in- 
vest their money in commercial enterprises instead 
of doing it themselves? Such an investment by 
the companies means that the workingmen will 
only get their wages out of it, which at no time is 
proportionate to their product, and then we are 
back again at another vicious circle, from which 
profits fly off at a tangent into the pockets of the 
financiers. The surplus production of the cap- 
ital, a portion of which belongs to the workingmen, 
will go as profits into the pockets of those finan- 
ciers. It enables the financiers to fatten on the 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 191 

money of the laborers. If there were not so much 
money in the treasuries of the life insurance com- 
panies, the extravagance of politicians would have 
nothing to feed on; public loans would not be as 
easy to obtain, because the demands of active in- 
vestments are great. How much of the public in- 
debtedness is taken up by individuals? It is 
mostly gobbled up first by powerful syndicates, 
which afterwards dole it out to the public at a 
profit. A good deal of this financing is done with 
life insurance money. 

RECIPROCAL CONTRACTS 

After the acquisition of the stock of some cor- 
porations by their employees has gone to the 
length of gaining control, there could be made 
even reciprocal agreements for the mutual ex- 
change of products among the workingmen on a 
cost basis, which would have the effect of lowering 
the cost of living and would be a strong weapon in 
the hands of the workingmen to force all the cor- 
porations engaged in similar production to sell 
their stock to their employees. This would mean 
but an extension of the principle of cooperation. 
The workingmen being also the consumers, getting 
their supplies from other companies owned by the 
workingmen would, naturally, lessen the general 
market demand for those products, and companies 
not controlled by workingmen would either have to 
lower the prices of their products or shut up shop. 
Supposing that one-fourth of the garment makers 



192 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

controlled the companies for wliich they worked 
and the same were true of the shoemakers, and they 
interchanged their products : that would withdraw 
these men out of the general market, and this 
would soon either lower the prices of these two 
commodities, or the other companies, from self- 
preservation, would have to allow their employees 
to acquire interest in them. With these the sell- 
ing of stock to their emploj^ees would become a sell- 
ing proposition of their products. The surplus 
production would be put on the general market 
and yield the profits. 

Heroic measures are needed to dissipate the 
wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. It 
cannot be done by legislation or by commissions 
or in any other arbitrary or violent way, as long 
as the masses of the people pour the millions of 
their savings into the vaults of the banks and the 
treasuries of insurance companies, to be controlled 
and invested by their few directors in enterprises 
out of which the wealth producing classes, the 
workingmen, get only daily wages, the profits not 
going to those who produce them and are in reality 
part owners, but to the few into whose hands the 
money was entrusted. Part of the money lent to 
a manufacturing or commercial enterprise belongs 
in reality to the millions of workingmen ; for this 
they get but a very small rate of interest, which 
is paid out of the gross profits of the produce of 
these very workingmen. Originally the capital- 
ists of our day arose by not distributing equitably 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 193 

the enormous profits which they made because of 
modern inventions, and they are maintaining and 
enlarging these enterprises with money which the 
laboring classes unwisely entrust to them and 
which they could not do but for this money. The 
natural resources, which are limited, came within 
the control of a few mainly because of their early 
start, but these could not be developed were it not 
for the money which they borrow from the differ- 
ent financial institutions, amassed there by the la- 
boring classes. Corporate ownership is the only 
practical means whereby the ownership of these 
gigantic holdings could be gradually redistributed 
among the many, if the masses appreciated the 
value of the means at hand and made a concerted 
effort to use them. Whether our commercial gi- 
ants get their capital with which they operate 
their enterprises through corporate or private 
loans, it is the money of the millions who deposit 
it as savings in the banks or pay it as premiums 
to the life insurance companies ; their wealth lies 
mainly in the organizations consisting of the work- 
in gmen which they maintain with this money. 
What is a million shares of stock, whose par value 
is, according to the figures on the certificate, 
$100.00, worth were it not backed by an organiza- 
tion of workingmen who are the real dividend pro- 
ducers ? What would large tracts of land covered 
with manufacturing buildings and expensive ma- 
chinery be worth were it not for the workingmen 
who make these machines produce useful articles? 



194 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

Waste land and scrap. Thej are valuable be- 
cause they are kept going by workingmen with the 
money accumulated by these same workingmen. 
How many millionaires are there who could make 
their plants go, if they could not borrow money.'' 
Their financial power lies not so much in their own 
individual wealth as in their ability to obtain the 
capital of others, even their own laborers. With 
this they speculate and pocket the profits. Com- 
merce is a wheel the hub of which consists of a few 
men at rest, while the rim, consisting of the many, 
is revolving. Yes, and wearing out too. The 
banks and the insurance companies are the spokes. 
But it is the tire that stands the grind. The 
whole country is drained of loose money through 
various channels into the vaults of a few and doled 
out by them to whom they please. Were equity 
and justice to rule, they should be considered only 
as trustees, and the equitable rule that a trustee 
is entitled only to a fair compensation for his 
work and that he cannot make a profit by it should 
be applied to them. They should not be allowed 
to speculate with this trust money. But it will 
be objected that the officers of the banks get only 
reasonable (.'') salaries for their work and the 
stockholders only fair dividends from their invest- 
ment. That is true on the face of it ; but what 
wrecks the majority of banks.? Bad investments 
of the money deposited in those banks by a few 
favored individuals ; and those favored few are sel- 
dom outsiders. If their enterprises prosper they 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 195 

reap great profits and enrich themselves ; if they 
prove disastrous, the depositors lose. If the la- 
boring class invested their savings in stocks di- 
rectly instead of letting the banks do it, this could 
not happen. Examine the statements of the 
banks as they are published quarterly, and there 
you will see that the bulk of their money is in- 
vested either in stocks and bonds or loaned on col- 
lateral. Whose money is this, and what does that 
mean.'' The money deposited in the banks by 
small merchants and tradesmen is used mainly by 
their own class to keep their little affairs going; 
it is the money that is deposited on time that is 
being lent to large corporations to make them go. 
The farmers as a class are just beginning to have 
surplus money, and they too need all that reaches 
the banks from their class, and more. It is high 
time that the laboring man woke up to the gravit}'^ 
of the situation and made a start to remedy this 
unhealthy condition of affairs, and do it in a safe 
and sane way. The cry is " safety first," and it 
should apply not only to mechanical devices but 
also to economic conditions. If he did that, he 
could assure his own future and that of his pos- 
terity. In the olden days, the journeyman saved 
from his earnings in order to start for himself; 
his savings constituted the capital with which he 
went into business and became an independent 
man ; the workingmen to-day should do the same 
thing by putting their savings in the stocks of the 
companies for which they are working, if at all 



196 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

possible. But thej must first of all divest them- 
selves of the idea that they are working for the 
few dollars of wages which are doled out to them, 
and place before themselves the purpose of obtain- 
ing the control of their products by a peaceful and 
practical means and not by violent revolutionary 
and visionary theorizing, which blinds reason, dis- 
torts the perspectives of life and excites feelings 
of hatred and discontent. What are a few 
against a million actuated by a high purpose and 
fired with determination to win out.? The task is 
not as hopeless as it would at first appear. There 
is nothing that patience will not accomplish. But 
talking will not do it, nor violence. " Hot air " 
can only raise a balloon which is bound to come 
down ; fire may become a very destructive element, 
but " steam " can remove mountains. 

V. DOLLAR-IZED PARENTHOOD AND HOME 

We have dollar-ized parenthood and home. 
Nowadays a man takes to himself a wife for the 
purpose of spending so many dollars on her. The 
question with herself and her parents is : will he be 
able to spend on his wife as many dollars as her 
father is doing? Or, to use the conventional 
phrase, can he support a wife in the style to which 
she is used.'' If this were applied at all times and 
all men added a little to the fortune which they 
had at the time they married, the time would come 
when a man could not marry at all. The man has 
to get rid of some of the money which he strives 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 197 

so hard to get, and, as he has been making it for 
the purpose of showing to the rest of the world 
how successful a man he is according to the dollar 
standard, he, of all things, selects his wife as the 
means of display. He makes her a clothes-tree 
upon which to hang up his dollars, a figure upon 
which to display the fashions of the day, just to 
show that he can afford to do so. This does not 
mean that he should not supply her with things to 
the best of his means, but display should not be the 
main object. And the woman, too, looks first to 
what pleasures that money can buy will she be able 
to afford, or how much of her husband's money 
she will be able to spend. There are a few who 
still persist in following their natural inclinations 
and instincts at mating, but a great majority of 
these also, when the unsophistication of youth has 
worn off, turn to the dollar standard. It is not 
the fitness to establish and maintain a home, in its 
true sense, that constitutes nowadays the neces- 
sary qualifications for marriage, but the ability 
to spend a great many dollars upon it. The main 
purpose is not to raise children of healthy bodies 
and good characters, but, if this evil does obtrude 
itself in spite of all efforts to keep it out, they are 
considered only as a further means of displaying 
the dollars. The repression of motherhood has 
not only distorted the souls but also wrecked the 
bodies of women. The institutions established by 
men have placed restraints upon motherhood, but 
little has been done to curb the passions. Mar- 



198 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

riage and monogamy are the necessary outgrowth 
of the right of private property by reason of the 
difficulties it places in the way of rearing children, 
making it more and more complicated every day ; 
but neither the restraints of matrimony nor the 
comprehension of the difficulties in raising chil- 
dren is a sufficient check upon the mightiest proto- 
plasmic instinct of reproduction ; hence licentious- 
ness, immorality, infidelity, spread of loathsome 
diseases, and so on, — more than one half of the 
evils which men have to endure. 

And strange to say, women, in spite of the evi- 
dent evil consequences, are seeking a higher, no- 
bler destiny than to be old-fashioned mothers. 
Old fashioned ! Yea, as old as is mankind, as is 
the universe itself! And what is the substitute.'' 
The making of dollars. For they, too, crave the 
same dollar-ized success that men are achieving. 
High destiny ! God save the mark ! They want 
to be the equals of men. If men had some sublime 
ideals before them, they could be excused ; but it 
would be far nobler for the women to try to divert 
men from pursuing false gods than to follow in 
their footsteps. Just now they think that to ob- 
tain the right of voting would be the means of 
their attaining this ideal ; that it would do away 
with the drudgery of keeping house and rearing a 
family, which they consider below their destiny. 
If they want the franchise with these false concep- 
tions of their destiny in mind, they should not get 
it; if they want it, however, because it would be 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 199 

applying to them only the underlying principles 
of our government, then let them have it ; they are 
entitled to it, at least as much as the men are. 
How could they judge rightly as to what would be 
good for society when they so grossly misconceive 
their position in the economy of nature, when they 
are dragging down motherhood from its elevated 
pedestal and trying to replace it with the dollar 
sign ? 

The work of the home is drudgery only to 
those who choose to look upon it that way and 
who fail to comprehend the exalted position which 
a mother holds. We have a powerful government 
machine, costing us billions of dollars a year; we 
have had religion of one sort or another for many 
thousands of years ; we have perfected our educa- 
tional system, upon which the ablest minds are 
spending their energies, for the curbing of the nat- 
ural human passions and desires within the limits 
of necessity, and the sum total of their work would 
be imperceptible were it not for the work of the 
mother in the home: whatever good there is in the 
world to-day must be attributed to the mother, 
and it is her noblest and greatest monument. The 
natural instincts of preservation and propagation 
can be successfully combated only by persistent 
training of the mind supplemented by another 
powerful instinct, child-love. That is the reason 
why ancestor worship held in the past, and still 
holds in some countries to-day, such an important 
place in the work of regulating these human in- 



200 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

stincts and keeping them from proving destructive. 
The habit of thought which we call conscience is 
the result of the patient work of the mother. And 
" modern women " choose to call this work drudg- 
ery and wish to substitute for it the chasing of the 
dollars ! Was it nobler to have given to the world 
George Washington or radium? Can the achieve- 
ment of high honors on the fields of art or litera- 
ture compare with the glory of a mother who 
raised sons and daughters of noble character.'' Is 
the creation of fictitious, and sometimes very in- 
sipid, heroes and heroines in novels more praise- 
worthy than bringing into the world and rearing 
real flesh-and-blood heroes and heroines? Is the 
clinking of the dollar more musical than the coo- 
ing, nay, the crying, of a chubby baby? It is 
pitiful to see a woman lavishing her mother love 
upon some ugly dog or a fuzzy cat and pretending 
to be satisfied. She knows that she is making a 
sorry mess of it and only trying to deceive herself. 
And look at the wistful glances from the hungry 
eyes of those wrecks of womanhood who know that 
they cannot be mothers any more, even though 
they have amassed many dollars in their younger 
days. Which is a more beautiful picture of true 
womanhood : the famous authoress with a big bank- 
roll and a pug dog, or the grandmother with a 
noisy troop of grandchildren about her? Which 
is sweeter to the woman's ears : the cry " grand- 
ma " or the plaudits of an audience? And all this 
because they think that the acquisition of dollars. 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 201 

or the following of what they chose to call their 
" career," is a higher destiny than keeping house, 
darning socks, frying chops and attending to the 
necessities of the house in order to make a com- 
fortable home for the little ones. 

Aside from that, which is more of a drudg- 
ery: to sell socks over a counter to some fussy 
women at so much per week, or darning the holes 
in socks made by the toes of little ones for the love 
of them? Housecleaning to make the home 
healthy is monotonous, and pounding the type- 
writer for eight or nine hours every day is not ! 
Housework is wearing on the nerves, but sitting 
cooped up in an office or standing all day behind a 
counter is not! What healthy specimens of rosy- 
cheeked girls do we see daily pouring out of the 
shops and factories! They are all so sprightly 
and gay; their eyes are sparkling with glee and 
exuberant health! Their laugh is so whole- 
hearted and gay, and their steps so springy ! 
And oh ! how they do cultivate their minds ! Some 
of them get married and what good mothers they 
make ! Some. No mating unless for natural rea- 
sons and from natural instinct can be a success. 
Money alone has yet to make a happy home. Pla- 
tonic love is an absurdity, and soul-mating an- 
other name for plain licentiousness. 

But some creamy (49^, reduced from 50^) 
complexioned girl rises to ask : " When can we 
have a good time after we are married, and if we 
have to attend to our daily duties ; woman's work 



202 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

is never done? What pleasures can a girl have at 
home minding the ' kids ' ? " If by good time and 
pleasures you mean the spending of some young 
fool's money on chewing gum and shooting the 
chutes, you cannot get those at home ; you had 
better stay where you are. If watching a few chil- 
dren growing up and seeing their beautiful souls 
unfolding like so many lilies is not, in your opinion, 
a pleasure, then you had better keep on pounding 
the typewriter, copying form letters or making out 
meaningless requisition papers ; go to dances as 
long as you are able to get partners for the tango. 
If you think that what you call pleasure is worth 
the drudgery to which you must submit, then you 
had better stay where you are. If you think it is 
more pleasing to feel a few dollars in your purse 
on pay-day than the caress of a chubby little arm 
about your neck, then it is certainly better for 
you to chase the dollars ; get as many as you can 
and as long as you can, for that is all you will get 
out of your life. Besides, it is not so bad as one 
would imagine with American wives. The Ameri- 
can husband, as a class, is the most indulgent and 
generous creature on earth. He is ready even to 
commit crimes in order to satisfy every whim of his 
wife. It is doubtful whether American women do 
appreciate what their husbands are doing for them 
and it may be that this very liberality has spoiled 
them. While he is willing to shoulder every bur- 
den, he does everything in his power to lighten that 
of his wife. The daily sacrifices that millions of 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 203 

American husbands are making for their wives and 
children are known only to them, for they are not 
in the habit of parading them before the world. 
And that they fully appreciate the hardships and 
dangers of motherhood can be seen from their re- 
spect for it. It is a strange paradox that man 
has exalted motherhood above all things, while 
woman herself is trying to drag it down. Men 
love children almost more than the mothers do ; 
everything for the " kiddies." 

" Well," some will say, " I can follow my career 
while I am young, enjoy all the pleasures while I 
may, above all things enjoy freedom while I am 
young, before I get married and settle down, when 
I will not be able to get as much keen enjoyment 
out of life." The fallacy of this is so apparent 
that it hardly needs disproving. Is it just to the 
man whom you think you will be able to ensnare to 
present him with the dregs of your life.? Is it 
just, above all, to your future offspring, if you 
should have any, to give them the remnants of 
your vigor, the best portion of which you wasted 
on frivolities .P Do you think that the work which 
you have come to consider as drudgery will become 
congenial by simply going through the marriage 
ceremony? Will you be able to give up thereby 
what you have considered as the highest form of 
pleasure .-^ It is difficult to teach an old dog new 
tricks. Will the recollection of the gayeties of 
your younger days make attractive your home.'' 
Will your habitation be a home to you.'' Or will 



204 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

you not rather prefer to continue your former 
mode of living, with the exception that it will be at 
the expense of your husband? You want to fol- 
low in the footsteps of man ; but are you sure that 
his way is right? Even with him, what is called 
success is but incidental to his fatherhood, and if 
he makes a failure of that, his life is a failure, no 
matter how many dollars he has amassed or what 
position he occupies in the eyes of the world. 

Of course, the girl who from necessity earns 
something to add to the family stock is not to be 
condemned but rather commended, but she should 
not get wrong notions into her head. The prepa- 
ration for home life, her natural state, should not 
be neglected. Nor should she place before herself 
the making of money as her ideal and purpose in 
life. The duties of home are, without doubt, on- 
erous and exacting, and serious preparation is 
necessary to prepare the mind to bear its burdens. 
Frivolous habits are not such a preparation, nor 
will a wrong conception of her destiny in nature 
lighten them for her. If she looks upon matri- 
mony as an unavoidable evil or as the easiest means 
of making her living, she has a wrong conception 
cf what a home should be, and she will not be able 
to make it a home. She ought to prepare to bring 
her share into the home, her willingness to assume 
its responsibilities, cheerfully and patiently. The 
husband's path is not all strewn with roses. On 
the other hand, the young man also should look 
upon matrimony as an equal partnership, and 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 205 

should not expect more than his wife will be able 
to get out of it. The male is the natural pro- 
vider, but he must go beyond that: he must also 
make up his mind to make his wife a companion. 
Some male birds sing for hours to while away the 
tedium of hatching. It should be give and take 
for both; unless this is thoroughly appreciated by 
both, the bonds of matrimony become galling and 
relief is sought in the divorce court. The increas- 
ing number of divorces that are asked for and ob- 
tained is becoming alarming to serious-minded 
people, and all kinds of reasons for their prev- 
alence are given and remedies suggested. Mating 
for life, or matrimony, as already stated, is a nec- 
essary outgrowth of the institution of private 
property. It cannot be asserted positively that 
it is a natural state. It requires a proper mental 
attitude for two people to submit cheerfully to the 
feeling of being bound to each other for life, and if 
such an attitude is lacking they are liable to chafe 
under the restraint. If they do, matrimony will 
be a burden to them and they will seek relief from 
it. Instead of looking for the causes of the in- 
creasing number of divorces outside, might it not 
be more practical to seek them in the motives with 
which couples enter this state, in their dispositions 
towards it, and in the preparation which they have 
made for it? If men look upon it merely as a 
means of displaying their wealth and success, and 
the women as a means of gratifying their desires 
for pleasure, will these have a lasting influence on 



206 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

them to bear its disappointments and burdens? If 
the women think that children are unwelcome 
guests and the duties of the home drudgery, are 
they fitted mentally and temperamentally to per- 
form the sacred trusts of motherhood and will they 
not shirk its duties? Add to that the difference 
in the temper of the two, and how can a marriage 
be a success unless entered into with the proper 
spirit? As long as both the man and the woman 
worship the dollar, can they be expected to submit 
cheerfully to the exactions of the home? It is dif- 
ficuH to give up any habit, and how can a couple 
expect to give up easily the habit of spending their 
time in frivolous pastimes, acquired during their 
single days, by going through the marriage cere- 
mony? It is stated that hasty marriages are 
liable to end in the divorce court; it would be very 
interesting to investigate what percentage of mar- 
riages entered into in cold blood end that way. It 
looks more reasonable that such as marry from 
natural instincts, and what they call hasty mar- 
riages are contracted that way, are more likely to 
make a success out of it than those where the par- 
ties contract them after a calculating reflection, 
expecting monetary and material gain out of it. 
Persistent educational work and careful training 
of the young are the most likely remedies to erad- 
icate this ever growing evil. They must be im- 
pressed as early as possible with the sacredness of 
the trust of bringing up children and with the idea 
that a happy home is the greatest success. 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 207 

VI. DOLLAR-IZED HAPPINESS 

We have reduced happiness to the dollar stand- 
ard. Because of our insatiable desire to own and 
spend dollars, contentment has vanished from our 
midst, and without contentment happiness is im- 
possible. We have the mistaken idea that owning 
and spending dollars constitutes happiness. We 
envy the man who is in such a position, which 
makes us dissatisfied with our lot. The amount of 
dollars being limited, there must be some who have 
more and others who lack them. Everybody 
strives to outdo his neighbor in spending dollars ; 
if he cannot do so he is unhappy. The Declara- 
tion of Independence says that the pursuit of hap- 
piness is the natural right of man ; and so it is. 
But what kind of happiness .^ Surely not own- 
ing and spending dollars. The satisfaction of 
this inordinate desire to amass a great many dol- 
lars and to spend them will not in itself bring hap- 
piness. Happiness is a very complex feeling, and 
a great many elements enter into it. It is purely 
subjective and no absolute standard can be estab- 
lished for it. We may say that perfect function- 
ing of the body will induce a certain feeling which 
is akin to happiness ; but that is not all : we must 
also take into account the state of the mind. Like 
every other feeling, it cannot be completely sep- 
arated from the body, it cannot be all spiritual. 
With all the normal bodily desires satisfied and its 
needs supplied, an animal will feel what might be 



208 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

called happiness according to its capacity. That 
is about as close as we can get to the definition of 
absolute happiness. With man another element 
enters, — the satisfaction of those desires which he 
developed because of his intelligence and social rela- 
tions. He is able to look into the future and fore- 
see his needs ; naturally his desires include an as- 
surance to provide against future wants. This 
stimulates his natural instinct to hoard, and if 
conditions are against him he is likely to be very 
unhappy. He worries about his future and that 
of his offspring, and it requires a very strong 
mentality to preserve his equanimity under the 
stress of such worry. Unless his natural desires 
are curbed within the limits of necessity or the pos- 
sibility of being gratified, happiness cannot be 
thought of. With the desires unchastened, am- 
bition leaps beyond reason and discontent enters. 
Ambition, properly restrained, is a holy desire for 
improvement, for growth, the aim of life. It must, 
however, be coupled with patience, otherwise it is 
a very destructive force. Dissatisfaction with 
the present is not necessarily discontent; in fact, 
progress is almost impossible without it ; but it 
must be chastened so as not to cloud reason and 
destroy honor. We must not be too proud to take 
example from the lower animals, for we differ from 
them only in the degree of our capacities. Be- 
cause they do not worry about the future, they are 
easily satisfied and can be happy. Memories of 
the past may, for a time, destroy happiness, but 



OUR METRIC SYSTEM 209 

not for long; their effects soon wear off, and a 
proper view of the values of life will greatly min- 
imize them. With our desires within the proper 
limits, there will be few regrets to disturb equanim- 
ity. There is hardly a loss, except that of loved 
ones, that is worthy of our notice ; and the remem- 
brances of loved ones lost become hallowed in a 
short time, and do not interfere with the present. 
A man who has done all he could and the best he 
knew how will have nothing to reproach himself 
with. Lost opportunities are disquieting only to 
those whose desires have not been kept within the 
proper bounds, who have placed before themselves 
unattainable ends. Memories of past wrongdoing 
and the dread of unpleasant disclosures are pos- 
sible only with those who were driven to wrong- 
doing by overreaching ambition or unrestrained 
desires. These disturbers of happiness are self- 
inflicted. There is no reason why a man, in good 
health, his present wants satisfied, his future 
reasonably assured, his desires curbed, no past to 
reproach him and willing to work for his living, 
should not be happy. His future will be a dis- 
quieting factor only if his desires are beyond the 
possibility of being gratified. If he aspires for 
luxuries it will be very disquieting to him, for there 
is nothing in this world that may not change, and 
even some very wealthy men have died paupers. 

Before the law everybody is equal, but it would 
seem that we cannot apply that to making and 
spending money. Under our present institutions 



210 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

we cannot be equal, and if we pin our happiness to 
our ability to do this, we may never be happy. 
Not being able to get into such a position, or being 
convinced that our cupidity will not be satisfied, 
makes us unhappy. A great many are restless 
and chafe under the social and legal restraints 
which are placed in their way. Why is there so 
much reviling against the wealthy, why so much 
jealousy? Just because the revilers are not able 
to do as the rich are doing; they want to own and 
spend as many dollars as the wealthy do, fondly 
imagining that this makes them happy. Democ- 
racy proclaims equality, but that is only political 
equality ; it cannot guarantee equality in all things, 
and especially in such matters as depend upon the 
difference in human capacities. There are cases 
of actual want; but total failures can be blamed 
only upon the individuals themselves. The insati- 
able desire to spend a great deal of money has 
wrecked many a human life. If we could only 
learn to pity the " poor rich ! " 



CHAPTER VI 

DEMOCRACY'S NEED 

When the Fathers of our Republic signed the 
Declaration of Independence, they thereby not 
only severed their political relations with the 
mother country but, in that immortal document, 
they proclaimed to the world the rock-bottom prin- 
ciple of social intercourse, cooperation. The 
declaration that " governments derive their just 
powers from the consent of the governed " not only 
laid down the fundamental principle of the demo- 
cratic form of government, but it also established a 
new ground for moral restraint. Under the theory 
of our government, " self-government " not only 
means the right of every citizen to have a voice in 
the administration of public affairs, but it also 
includes the placing of the necessary restraints by 
every individual upon himself. Every man must 
govern himself in his every-day acts so that they 
do not conflict with the aims for which his civil 
government has been established, the protection of 
life, the securing to every one his full measure of 
political liberty and the pursuit of happiness. De- 
mocracy can accomplish these noble aims only 

when every one of its citizens does thus govern 
211 



212 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

himself. Governments are established to place the 
necessary restraints upon their citizens by passing 
laws and executing them, but these will be but 
shams unless every citizen realizes the full measure 
of his responsibilities and performs his duties will- 
ingly and of his own accord. 

I. THE THEORY OF OUR GOVERNMENT 

The colonists brought from England the seeds of 
local popular government. Most of them came to 
these shores in protest against the conditions pre- 
vailing in their mother countries ; their minds were 
full of the ideas of the natural rights of man, which 
were then so zealously propagated in Europe. 
They had revolted against the binding chains of 
traditions. Their isolation and their separation 
by the wide Atlantic made it easier for them to 
shake off the habit of submissiveness to traditions. 
When their political grievances made their connec- 
tion with the mother country unbearable, they were 
ready to put into practice these new ideals of a 
true democratic government. There was little to 
bind them to the past and most of them readily dis- 
carded the traditional ideas of government by any 
other right except their own consent. They 
started where the theorists of those days claimed 
all governments had started, in a contract between 
all the members of a community. With them it 
was not a reform, it was a new beginning. After 
they threw off the English rule they practically 



DEMOCRACY'S NEED 213 

started the same way as any other group of men 
go about forming a new association. Several of 
the original states even passed laws which called 
upon everyone dissatisfied with the new govern- 
ment that was in the process of being established 
to leave the country by a certain time unless he 
submitted to it. So that we can safely say that 
our government was established by the voluntary 
agreement of its citizens. It was a voluntary as- 
sociation, and all the laws are, therefore, based 
upon contract. This contract is perpetuated by 
the tacit assent of every American-bom citizen in 
accepting its benefits, and by the oath of alle- 
giance which every naturalized citizen takes. Our 
Federal and State governments are written con- 
tracts : " We, the people," and so on, do ordain 
thus and so. The aim for which this association 
was formed is clearly set forth in the preamble of 
the Federal Constitution. 

But the means provided are only general; they 
set out what is necessary for the promotion of the 
general welfare, so that the governments which are 
established by the constitutions can pass only such 
laws as will promote the general welfare and regu- 
late the conduct of its citizens and inhabitants only 
insofar as it affects others, and when it consists of 
overt acts. 

The Declaration of Independence proclaims 
that man is endowed by nature with certain in- 
alienable rights, life, and the pursuit of happi- 



214 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

ness. Living isolated, man has the natural right 
to defend these rights to the limit of his ability. 
Nature has supplied him with certain instincts and 
passions which impel him to use all his force in the 
defense of these rights. These instincts are selfish, 
they disregard the same rights in others. The 
government, which in this country was established 
by voluntary association, undertakes to guarantee 
these rights to all by placing such restraints upon 
the natural freedom of its citizens as will assure 
to every man their full enjoyment. These re- 
straints are the duties which the law imposes upon 
all. These restraints are upon natural freedom, a 
portion of which every citizen surrenders in order 
to enjoy the other natural rights. Living isolated, 
man would have the right to possess himself of 
everything he deemed necessary to the preserva- 
tion of his life, even if he thereby deprived another 
of what he needed. Such a state of affairs is im- 
possible in society, as that would lead to continual 
strife, because nobody, endowed with the same in- 
stincts and passions, would willingly surrender 
what he desired to have for his own needs. A 
right, then, is a portion of another man's natural 
liberty resigned by him in order to advance his 
welfare by cooperation, enforced by a government. 
Duty is the correlative of right. 

But the preservation of life and the pursuit of 
happiness have become very complicated by centu- 
ries of social life. Many factors enter into their 
attainment. Were man to live alone he could 



DEMOCRACY'S NEED 215 

easily satisfy his wants. He would have whatever 
he produced himself and nothing more. If he 
raised sufficient food he would feed, if not he would 
starve. He would know of no luxuries except those 
he could make himself; he would wear only such 
clothes as would be needed to protect his body 
against excessive heat and cold ; and he would have 
only such a shelter as would moderate the rigours 
of the climate. He would have no idea of wealth 
but what he could put away from his own surplus. 
He would be satisfied to toil daily to provide for 
himself and his offspring, as leisure and idleness 
would mean hunger and starvation for them and 
for himself. He would teach his children the habit 
of industry and his ambitions for them would not 
rise above teaching them how best to make the 
needed articles and how best to till the soil. It 
would never enter into his head, in fact he could 
never conceive the idea, that they could live with- 
out working and without providing their neces- 
saries by their own exertions. As long as he would 
be in good health and have enough food for his 
immediate needs and sufficient surplus to supply 
him over winter, he would be happy. Against the 
attack of others, and against wild animals, he 
would defend himself the best he could. Nature 
endowed him with the passions of anger and hatred 
to bring out all his powers when attacked, and he 
has intelligence to devise suitable methods of de- 
fense. Thus man would preserve his life and pur- 
sue happiness when living isolated. 



216 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

SOCIAL LIFE 

Whether by instinct or from experience, from 
time immemorial men chose to live in communities, 
deeming it a better way. With social life entered 
several institutions which not only made the sup- 
plying of the daily needs more complicated and 
even, contrary to its aim, more difficult, but tended 
to sharpen and to develop those natural desires 
and passions which, because their exercicse became 
unnecessary by reason of the benefits of coopera- 
tion, the assurance of protection and of the supply 
of daily wants, ought to have been curbed and lim- 
ited. Peace and good order are prime necessities 
of communal life, and the undisturbed possession 
of what man needs is indispensable for the preser- 
vation of peace : from this arose the institution of 
private property. The natural instinct to hoard 
away enough against the unproductive days devel- 
oped into greed for the possession of as much prop- 
erty as possible. The invention of barter and 
trade assisted in the development of greed, because 
it showed to man that it is possible to acquire 
enough to sustain himself without the necessity of 
laboring, which is naturally distasteful. It is 
pleasanter to play than to labor. This greed and 
its gratification produced riches and poverty and 
its companions, want and misery. The natural 
passion for personal adornment, which man in- 
herited from his pre-intelligent days and which was 
given him by nature in order to promote reproduc- 



DEMOCRACY'S NEED 217 

tion, degenerated into all those desires for luxuries 
which have brought so much evil into the world and 
which intelligent men ought to consider too petty 
for the serious objects of their desires. When 
man found that he could gratify his desires with- 
out working, ambition to control the production 
of others was born. It is unnecessary to recount 
the evil which this passion brought in its wake. 

NECESSITY FOR SELF-RESTRAINT 

Now all these so highly developed passions and 
desires are the great disturbers of the peace and 
militate against the attainment of the social aims. 
They must be kept within the proper bounds some- 
how. Under our theory of government a man is 
supposed to sit down and reason it out with him- 
self that, as a member of an association which he 
entered of his own free will, it is his duty to observe 
all the laws which are deemed necessary for the 
attainment of associate aims and to conduct him- 
self so that his acts will not come into conflict with 
the rights which this association undertook to as- 
sure to him as well as to all the other members ; 
that his duties are the necessary incidents of his 
membership and that they should not be considered 
as burdens by him. Whether the form of govern- 
ment is democracy, or any other form, that is the 
exact truth regarding the responsibilities of a cit- 
izen towards the society in which he lives. But 
what is cold blooded reasoning against the pri- 
mordial passions, sharpened by centuries of social 



218 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

living? The laws can reach man's acts, but they 
are powerless to curb his desires. Governments 
can pass rules of conduct to restrain him from 
doing what is injurious to others, but they cannot 
go beyond preserving peace. They can prevent 
open conflicts, but they cannot place limitations 
upon the desires, for the gratification of which men 
will resort to all kinds of trickery and subterfuges 
which the law is powerless to circumvent. Some 
institution is needed in every community whose 
purpose is to accomplish this. 

THE OFFICE OF RELIGION 

In all ages and among all the nations religion 
took upon itself this task. The religion of any 
people represents the realization of its social ideals. 
It represents a state in which all the known social 
evils shall have no existence, and the ideal aim of 
society, the pursuit of happiness, shall be realized. 
As to details, it never rose above the social order. 
Religion always reflected the social ideals. It dei- 
fied its founders and its national heroes. The 
means it employed for the curbing of human de- 
sires were similar to those employed by the govern- 
ments under which they existed. 

Christianity, born under an imperialistic form 
of government at the time when the Hebrews 
dreamt of regaining their earthly kingdom, repre- 
sents " God " as the ruler of the heavenly kingdom, 
where the souls of all his faithful subjects will be 
rewarded and where the kingdom which could not 



DEMOCRACY'S NEED 219 

be hoped for on this earth will be again established. 
As all good subjects of earthly kings hope to be 
rewarded for their faithfulness, promises of re- 
wards are held out by Christianity to induce its be- 
lievers to live according to the laws which, although 
they spring only from social necessities, are given a 
heavenly origin. The ideal of Christianity is a 
perfectly regulated monarchy, with an absolute 
monarch ruling over his subjects, consisting of 
various hierarchies and the common people. The 
desires which cannot be gratified on this earth 
shall be gratified in that kingdom ; the repression 
of such as would lead to disturbance here will be 
rewarded in this ideal life to come. Poverty, 
which was a prevalent evil in those days, is made a 
virtue to be crowned in heaven, and the acquisition 
of wealth a crime, in order to curb the desire for 
hoarding property. Charity, which is but ideal- 
ized cooperation, is made the greatest virtue, in 
order to teach men the necessity of mutually help- 
ing each other. The simple ideas of the early 
Christians were elaborated into a complicated sys- 
tem of philosophy, in order to meet the require- 
ments of advancing knowledge and to accommodate 
them to the changing social order. There can be 
no doubt as to the soundness, the wisdom and the 
efficacy of the majority of the ethical rules of 
Christianity, especially of those which have for 
their objects the repression of the passions and 
desires wliich cause social disturbance, but the 
symbolism with which they are clothed we may 



220 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

be permitted to question. We can doubt the 
efficacy of the motive which Christianity instills 
into its believers, the hope of a reward for perform- 
ing one's social duties. As the realization of this 
hope must be postponed to a life concerning which 
we know nothing and whose existence we can sin- 
cerely question, it is but a weak restraint upon 
man's passions, and the greater the doubt due to 
our knowledge, the less its force. 

The true aim of religion is the promotion of the 
cause of humanity. " Thy Kingdom come." 
Christianity committed its greatest error when it 
diverged from teaching simple moral principles, in- 
vaded the fields of speculative philosophy and clut- 
tered up its teachings with dogmas which advanc- 
ing scientific knowledge was bound to upset. It 
thereby opened the gates of doubt and weakened 
the force of its moral influence. Jesus of Naza- 
reth knew nothing of the philosophy of His day 
and taught no theological dogmas. It pushed its 
doctrine of rewards and punishments to the utmost 
limits and brought down upon itself a storm of 
protests. We all approve of its essential ethical 
maxims, but many, even among the faithful, differ 
on points which ought never to have entered into 
discussion. We all agree that human conduct 
needs regulation and that every man ought to do 
what is just to others ; we all know that a check 
must be placed upon all human passions and de- 
sires ; the rest is immaterial. To be most ef- 
ficacious, religion must be in harmony with the 



DEMOCRACY'S NEED 221 

social order and the prevalent ideals, because both 
law and religion have the same end in view, the 
promotion of human welfare. If men are capable 
of thoroughly understanding their social relations, 
it is not necessary to clothe them in symbols. By 
divergent ways civil and religious institutions can 
never reach their common goal. One ought to sup- 
plement the other. If the civil government is 
looked upon as an agent of the people who con- 
sider themselves the rulers, how can religion expect 
to impress them with its " God," who is a monarch ; 
if the people consider themselves as their own law- 
makers, how can religion expect them to obey laws 
arbitrarily enacted by someone else? If every cit- 
izen is expected to obey the laws of his country be- 
cause he agreed to do so, how can religion enforce 
its laws, in the passage of which he was not con- 
sulted? A man cannot be both the ruler and the 
ruled. Submission to laws promulgated by some 
higher authority is in consonance with the raon- 
archial system but not with a democratic form of 
government. And it matters little whether these 
regulate his public conduct or only his private acts. 
A man cannot be expected to restrain himself only 
from the sense of duty in some things and by ex- 
pectation of a bribe in others. More than likely 
he will look for a reward for all his restraints and, 
failing to receive it, he will allow his natural incli- 
nations full sway. Now, the heavenly rewards are 
shadowy and, at best, uncertain, and the restraint 
from sense of duty is not agreeable at all times, so 



222 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

that if a man is expected to exercise it from both 
motives, he is likely not to exercise it at all. If 
Christianity had not departed from its original aim 
by chasing after the fleeting lights of speculative 
philosophy, it would be now in a position to adapt 
itself to altered conditions, to changed views. It 
would not have to devise subterfuges in order to 
" save its face " because of the discovery of facts 
by science which have disproved its dogmatically 
proclaimed truths. Essentially social relations 
are the same to-day as they always were. Man's 
duty to his fellow-man is the same to-day as it was 
five thousand years ago, and it is the same in 
America as in India or Patagonia. And these 
duties alone should religion undertake to preach 
and propagate. 

NATIONAL RELIGION 

Now, then, if the theory of civil government re- 
quires of its citizens to perform their duties from a 
sense of personal responsibility, religion should 
take upon itself to preach personal responsibility. 
That is what American government requires of 
its citizens. If the powers of our government are 
derived from our consent, then the laws which are 
passed by virtue of these powers derive their force 
from our consent, and we should stand by our 
word not because we expect to be sometimes re- 
warded for it, but because we have given our word. 
With us it is a question of honor. Our obedience 
of the laws is from the sense of honor, and how 



DEMOCRACY'S NEED 223 

can religion cultivate this sense, and that is what 
it should do, if it teaches the hope of rewards as 
a motive for doing good? Hope for a reward is 
just as likely to produce sneaks and hypocrites 
as honest men, maybe more so. You can bribe 
slaves, but not men who habitually consider them- 
selves as rulers. We see the strange anomaly of 
self-confessed or convicted criminals trusted, while 
supposedly honest men have to be bribed to be 
good. The courts take the words of those who 
have already violated their honor, while religion 
deems it necessary to oiFer bribes to those who 
obey the laws. The criminal's word to be good 
is now worth more than that of a law-abiding citi- 
zen, for the former has also given his word to obey 
the laws by consenting to their passage. Our 
civil government offers no rewards to its citizens 
for obej'^ing the laws, outside of the advantages 
accruing from cooperation ; why should it be nec- 
essary for religion to do so? And because we 
have not gotten rid of the habit of expecting to 
be rewarded for well-doing is the reason why the 
exploitation of the public for private gain is so 
prevalent. What is there in it for me? If I will 
be good, will it profit me personally ? And Chris- 
tianity encourages and fosters this habit of 
thought. And the habit is so fixed that we are 
inclined to be suspicious of anyone who claims to 
do otherwise. The indirect and remote advan- 
tages of cooperation do not appeal to us or sat- 
isfy us ; there must be some personal reward in 



224 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

addition. My good behavior may come to the 
attention of my king and he will reward me for it. 
Why is this.'' Because religion persists in dan- 
gling future rewards as the price of the obedience 
of laws. Democracy, then, needs an educational 
institution whose ethical teachings are in harmony 
with its fundamental principles. It must teach 
self-government, the habit of self-restraint from 
the sense of personal responsibility. It is only 
such a religion that can be an influence for good. 
It must be satisfied to solve the everyday problems 
of this life and let the future take care of itself. 

Democracy needs also an institution which 
would teach men their positive duties. Under the 
theory of our government, only so much of man's 
natural freedom is surrendered by him and cir- 
cumscribed by the laws as is absolutely necessary ; 
consequently only such acts are regulated as 
would tend to disturb the peace. They are nearly 
all only prohibitions. It is not the policy of our 
laws to prescribe to men what they shall do. But 
only refraining from doing injury to others is not 
cooperation, which also means the doing of things 
beneficial to others. If men did nothing for oth- 
ers, social life, because of the restrictions it places 
on man, would be a disadvantage. Our positive 
legislation is limited to revenue and administrative 
laws ; mutual helpfulness is left to the people's 
own inclinations. But we do not live under gov- 
ernments merely to maintain expensive machin- 
ery for the administration of laws, which only in- 



DEMOCRACY'S NEED 225 

sure peace and thereby limit our natural freedom 
and take away from us the means with which na- 
ture provided us to preserve our lives ; we want to 
derive some benefits also, to enjoy the fruits of co- 
operation. 

The law, however, does not direct us as to what 
we shall do. Democracy, then, needs an institu- 
tion which would take upon itself the duty of in- 
terpreting to and impressing upon the people the 
full meaning of cooperation, that would preach the 
gospel of work and service, of mutual helpfulness. 
Furthermore, this institution should be the path- 
finder, the leader in progress. Life is growth, and 
social life is the best means of preserving it ; con- 
sequently, society must also grow. It grows be- 
cause it must daily provide new means of protec- 
tion; that is really what growth is, adaptation to 
varying external conditions. Society to be effica- 
cious must also be able to grow, to develop, to de- 
vise new means of protection, to adapt itself to 
changing conditions. It needs pioneers. Democ- 
racy needs, therefore, an institution which would 
cultivate high ideals to inspire men to become pio- 
neers. High ideals are the expressions of an at- 
tribute of the universal life to grow and to develop. 

Such work is educational. The school is inade- 
quate mainly because the children and youths that 
attend it are not yet capable of comprehending the 
necessities and exalted purposes of society. The 
work of restraining the natural passions and de- 
sires within the limits of necessity was done in the 



226 THE GIFT OF MIND TO SPIRIT 

past almost exclusively by the mother in the home, 
but nowadays women have got it into their heads 
that this work is drudgery, and below their destiny 
as they understand it. They mistakenly imagine 
that chasing dollars is nobler than raising chil- 
dren. While there were single pioneers of prog- 
ress, it is the united effort of religious institutions 
that laid out the path which humanity should 
travel. Consequently, democracy needs to turn 
to religion to perform this necessary work. But 
religion can do this most efficaciously only when it 
is in thorough accord with the principles of the 
civil government ; it must be supplemental to it ; 
it must be grounded in the same fundamental prin- 
ciples. The civil institutions of the past were at 
the height of their powers when they had such re- 
ligions. 

National affairs and problems are of this world ; 
they are of everyday life and the present state, 
and not with some future state; if religion wishes 
to be a guide, it must concern itself with these real 
problems, and not with some ephemeral speculative 
conditions. It is our duty to preserve this life 
which we have here, and not some ideal existence 
about which we can only guess. Social problems, 
with changing conditions, suggest suitable remedies, 
and in devising these religion should be the leader. 
If religion does not lead, there will arise men out- 
side of it who will, and then religion will become 
merely a useless adjunct, following instead of lead- 
ing. We see this well exemplified in the policy of 



DEMOCRACY'S NEED 227 

paroles adopted by law. In other words, democ- 
racy, too, needs, not a state church, but a national 
religion. 



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